Nora slowly left the room.

"Oh! but it's like lead my heart is," she said to herself.

The day pa.s.sed very dismally for the wild Irish girl. After lunch she and her aunt had a long and proper drive. They drove through lovely country; but Nora was feeling even a little bit cross, and could not see the beauties of the perfectly tilled landscape, of the orderly fields, of the lovely hedgerows.

"It is too tidy," she said once in a choking sort of voice.

"Tidy!" answered Mrs. Hartrick. She looked at Nora, t.i.ttered a sigh, and did not speak of the beauties of the country again.

When they got back from their drive things were a little better, for Linda and Molly had returned from school; and, for a wonder, Molly was not in disgrace. She looked quite excited, and darting out of the house, took Nora's hand and pulled it inside her arm.

"Come and have a talk," she said. "I am hungering for a chat with you."

"Tea will be ready in fifteen minutes, Molly," called out Mrs.

Hartrick, then entered the house accompanied by Linda.

Meanwhile Molly and Nora went round to the shrubbery at the back of the house.

"What is the matter with you?" said Molly. She turned and faced her companion.

Nora's eyes filled with sudden tears.

"It is only that I am keeping in so much," she said; "and--and, oh!

I do wish you were not all quite so tidy. I am just mad for somebody to be wild and unkempt. I feel that I could take down my hair, or tear a rent in my dress--anything rather than the neatness. Oh! I hate your landscapes, and your trim hedges, and your trim house, and your--"

"Go on," said Molly; "let it out; let it out. I'll never repeat it.

You must come in, in about a quarter of an hour, to a stiff meal.

You will have to sit upright, let me tell you, and not lounge; and you will have to eat your bread and b.u.t.ter very nicely, and sip your tea, and not eat overmuch. Mother does not approve of it. Then when tea is over you will have to leave the room and go upstairs and get things out for dinner."

"My things out for dinner?" gasped Nora. "What do you mean?"

"Your evening-dress. Do you suppose you will be allowed to dine in your morning-dress?"

"Oh, to be sure," said Nora, brightening; "now I understand. Mother did get me a white frock, and she had it cut square in the neck, and the sleeves are a little short."

"You will look sweet in that," said Molly, gazing at her critically; "and I will bring you in a bunch of sweet-peas to put in your belt, and you can have a little bunch in your hair, too, if you like. You know you are awfully pretty. I am sure Linda is just mad with jealousy about it; I can see it, although she does not say anything.

She is rather disparaging about you, is Linda; that is one of her dear little ways. She runs people down with faint praise. She was talking a lot about you as we were going to school this morning. She began: 'You know, I do think Nora is a pretty girl; but it is such a pity that--'"

"Oh, don't," said Nora, suddenly putting out her hand and closing Molly's lips.

"What in the world are you doing that for?" said Molly.

"Because I don't want to hear; she did not mean me to know that she said these things."

"What a curiosity you are!" said Molly. "So wild, so defiant, and yet- -oh, of course, I like you awfully. Do you know that the vision of your face kept me good all day? Isn't that something to be proud of? I didn't answer one of my teachers back, and I did have a scolding, let me tell you. Oh, my music; you don't know what I suffer over it. I have not a single particle of taste. I have not the faintest ghost of an ear; but mother insists on my learning. I could draw; I could sketch; I can do anything with my pencil; but that does not suit mother. It must be music. I must play; I must play well at sight; I must play all sorts of difficult accompaniments for songs, because gentlemen like to have their songs accompanied for them; and I must be able to do this the very moment the music is put before me. And I must not play too loud; I must play just right, in perfect time; and I must be ready, when there is nothing else being done, to play long pieces, those smart kind of things people do play in the present day; and I must never play a wrong note. Oh, dear! oh, dear! and I simply cannot do these things. I don't know wrong notes from right. I really don't."

"Oh, Molly!" cried Nora.

"There you are; I can see that you are musical."

"I think I am, very. I mean I think I should always know a wrong note from a right one; but I have not had many opportunities of learning."

"Oh, good gracious me! what next?" exclaimed Molly.

"I don't understand what you mean," said Nora.

"My dear, I am relieving my feelings, just as you relieved yours a short time ago. Oh, dear! my music. I know I played atrociously; but that dreadful Mrs. Elford was so cross; she did thump so herself on the piano, and told me that my fingers were like sticks. And what could I do? I longed to let out some of my expressions at her. You must know that I am feared on account of my expressions--my slang, I call them. They do shock people so, and it is simply irresistible to see them shudder, and close their eyes, and draw themselves together, and then majestically walk out of the room. The headmistress is summoned then, and I--I am doomed. I get my pieces to do out of school; and when I come home mother lectures me, and sends me to my bedroom. But I am free to-night. I have been good all day; and it is on account of you, Nora; just because you are a little Irish witch; and I sympathize with you to the bottom of my soul."

"Molly! Molly!" here called out Linda's voice; "mother says it's time for you and Nora to come in to wash your hands for tea."

"Oh, go to Jericho!" called out Molly.

Linda turned immediately and went into the house.

"She is a tell-tale-t.i.t," said Molly. "She will be sure to repeat that to mother; and do you think I shall be allowed any cake? There is a very nice kind of rice-cake which cook makes, and I am particularly fond of it. You'll see I am not to have any, just because I said 'Go to Jericho!' I am sure I wish Linda would go."

"But those kind of things are rather vulgar, aren't they?" said Nora. "Father wouldn't like them. We say all kinds of funny things at home, but not things like that. I wish you would not."

"You wish I would not what?"

"Use words like 'Go to Jericho!' Father would not like to hear you."

"You are a very audacious kind of girl, let me tell you, Nora," said Molly. She colored, and looked annoyed for a moment, then burst into a laugh. "But I like you all the better for not being afraid of me,"

she continued. "Come, let's go into the house; we can relieve our feelings somehow to-night; we'll have a lark somehow; you mark my words. In the meantime mum's the word."

CHAPTER XVI.

A CHEEKY IRISH GIRL.

At tea the girls were very stiff. Molly and Nora were put as far as possible asunder. They did not have tea in the drawing room, but in the dining room, and Mrs. Hartrick presided. There was jam on the table, and two or three kinds of cake, and, of course, plenty of bread and b.u.t.ter.

As Molly had predicted, however, the news of her expression "Go to Jericho!" had already reached Mrs. Hartrick's ears, and the fiat had gone forth that she was only to eat bread and b.u.t.ter. It was handed to her, in a marked way, by her mother, and Linda's light-blue eyes flashed with pleasure. Nora felt at that moment that she almost hated Linda. She herself ate resignedly, and without much appet.i.te.

Her spirits were down to zero. It seemed far less likely than it did before she left O'Shanaghgan that she could help her father out of his sc.r.a.pe. It was almost impossible to break through these chains of propriety, of neatness, of order. Would anybody in this trim household care in the very least whether the old Irishman broke his heart or not? whether he and the Irish girl had to go forth from the home of their ancestors? whether the wild, beautiful, rack-rent sort of place was kept in the family or not?

"They none of them care," thought Nora. "I don't believe Uncle George will do anything; but all the same I have got to ask him. He was nice about my letter, I will own that; but will he really, really help?"

"A penny for your thoughts, Nora, my dear," said Mrs. Hartrick at this moment.

Nora glanced up with a guilty flush.

"Oh, I was only thinking," she began.

"Yes, dear, what about?"

"About father." Nora colored as she spoke, and Linda fixed her eyes on her face.