Sheila Pat, her face scarlet, ran at him, and tried futilely to shake him. He seized her and swung her aloft. From her lofty perch she scornfully attacked him. "Sure I would have thought you’d be spakin’ it better than that! _How_ old are you? O dear, what great boobies these English boys are! Hoots toots, indeed! And who was the other monkey-kangaroo, then?" "Little Foster. You don’t know him. Thought it looked better to have two, and, you see, I was too shy to sing all alone! Aren’t you going to forgive me, acushlums? Och, begorra, I’ve been learning that ’Rory O’More’ a whole week all for your benefit!" "Nell,"—he began presently. "Bravo, Ted!" she interpolated. He flushed and laughed. "Well, Nell," he resumed, "how did you find out so quickly?" "That gossoon," nodding at Denis. "I saw by his face. He never can keep anything in. And to think he _knew_! And let me waste my substance on a wicked fraud of a Ted!" "I recognised him almost at once," observed Denis. Nell’s eye had grown suddenly absent, preoccupied with thoughts of something else. She rose and sidled, with what she thought deep artfulness, but which a child could have seen through, toward the artistic pillow-case. She had caught sight of the deep emerald green silk tie she was knitting for Ted sticking up in full view, gazing brazenly at Ted himself, she declared. Fortunately he was engaged just then with the Atom, so saw nothing of Nell’s transparent manoeuvring. "Sure the very babies themselves," said Sheila Pat, earnestly, "speak it better than that!" "Do they, Sheila Pat? How clever the Irish must be!" "Of course they are," said Sheila Pat. *CHAPTER XIX* Christmas came with a rush in the end. "Santa Claus," said Nell, "has not a well-regulated mind. For the weeks before Christmas he rides at a leisurely trot, looking about him, smiling. Then suddenly he finds there isn’t time for half he’s got to do, and off he gallops—over hedges of toys—ditches of sweets—up hills of mince pies and puddings—sends us all scattering here and there on his errands—I wonder why he always muddles it like that?" "Perhaps the old chap’s Irish," suggested Ted. Christmas eve found her with the painting of Kate Kearney for Sarah not finished; with Ted’s tie in the same condition; with Denis’s present still unbought; with half Molly’s not got yet, and innumerable little bits and things to do. The others were in much the same case.