"If you think I'm detestable, what do you suppose I think of you?" he asked.

"Oh, no one thinks at all when it's me," with a funny little pursing up of her lips, and a sweeping disregard of grammar. "You see, I can't be judged after any ordinary standard, as I'm not ordinary. I'm not a girl, and I'm not a boy--I'm Paddy--'Paddy-the-next-best-thing.'"

He laughed again. "Oh no! you're not ordinary," he agreed, "and I'm rather sorry there are not some more Paddys--I like the breed."

"Jack doesn't," calmly going on with her tinkering. "He started helping me to do this job, and then he got wild, and when I suggested he took the slates off the good part to mend the bad, he went off in a huff. He implied that he could do with me when I was funny, but not when I was silly," and she chuckled to herself with a remembering relish.

"He has very bad taste. He should like you in any mood."

"His taste is apparently much the same as yours." Paddy looked up with a queer expression in her eyes, before which he glanced away. He knew she was alluding to Eileen. "Unfortunately for him," she finished calmly.

Lawrence glanced at her again, and when he did so he blew that she had spoken with intent. She had given him either a hint or a warning; he could not quite say which; but he understood at once, that in her eyes he was already her sister's recognised suitor. He touched up his horse to ride on. "Well, good-by," lightly. "May I bring you a birthday present this evening?"

"No," she laughed back, "bring a few thunder-clouds to entertain me."

It was not until the evening began, that he discovered what kind of a party he had accepted an invitation for.

Paddy enlightened him.

"You've got to begin by sitting on the floor, and playing, 'Brother, I'm bobbed!'" she announced. "You'll find it rather hot work, but you can cool down afterward, while someone takes your place."

"I've a great admiration for you, Paddy," he answered calmly. "But not for all the Paddys in the world will I sit on the floor and play, 'Brother, I'm bobbed!'"

"Tut tut!" mimicked, Paddy, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up an imaginary eyegla.s.s. "Your-- your--shoe a little too tight--did you say!--or was it your--ahem-- divided skirt...?"

"I said I should not play 'Brother, I'm bobbed,'" repeated Lawrence, laughing; "but if a score has to be kept of the bobbing--whatever process that may be--I am at your service."

"You can go and sit with Daddy, and the old people," scathingly. "You might have guessed my birthday party wasn't very likely to be reclining in arm-chairs, and conversing politely."

"May I, as a special favour, be allowed first to mention a package in the hall, intended for your Serene Highness--?"

"A package!--in the hall!--Oh! go and sit where you like, and do what you like," and she flew off to look for it, returning triumphantly with the finest production in confectionery that Newry could boast.

After that Lawrence was left in peace, to sit by the delighted old soldier, who laughed till he was again ill, at the wild scenes which ensued; until the climax of Paddy on the floor, with a small table of bric-a-brac, and the coal box on top of her, with the coals flying in all directions, proved too much for him. When she at last scrambled to her feet, with a face Jack and Doreen Blake had surrept.i.tiously smudged with coal dust, he had to be led away to his own den for a smoke, whither Lawrence accompanied him. "These Scrimmage Parties are too much for me now-a-days," said the fine old warrior, sinking back into his big chair. "Lord! what a girl she is!--what a girl she is!" and there was a ring of delight and pride in his voice, which his gentle, beautiful daughter never inspired.

"She informed me this morning she was not a girl," remarked Lawrence.

"She said she was neither a girl, nor a boy, she was Paddy!"

The father chuckled in delight. "It's about true, for there's not her like anywhere. Begorra, lad!--if she'd been a boy--there'd not have been a soldier in the British army to touch her. But she'll go far yet," nodding his head sagely. "I'll give any beautiful woman points in another two or three years, and back Paddy against her. While the other woman's doing her hair, and arranging her dress, and thinking what to say, Paddy'll be getting there. She won't need to stop and think.

She'll be just herself, and if I'm not much mistaken, the men'll go down before her like ninepins. O Lord!--and she'll snap her fingers in their faces, and go rampaging on, like a real, thoroughbred Irish Fusilier.

"But I shall not be there to see," dropping his voice suddenly to a note of sadness. "Take my advice, Lawrence, and marry young. I married too late, and when everything is just at its best, I shall get my summons to go." He shook his head mournfully, and sank for a moment into a reverie, seeing his heart's darling, his boy that was a girl, queening it over an admiring throng, and he no longer at hand to rejoice.

Lawrence commenced to chat with him of his travelling adventures, in his most engaging manner, to cheer him up; smiling inwardly a little at his estimate of the tom-boy, whom he could hardly conceive as yet, compelling anything but the indulgent fondness for an amusing child.

A little later she broke in upon them herself, to say they were all going for a row on the Loch by starlight, to finish up with an impromptu open-air concert, with Ted Masterman's banjo, and Kathleen's guitar.

They rose to follow her, and soon after the whole night seemed to ring with merry choruses from the two boats; a rowdy one containing Jack and Paddy, and a few other kindred spirits; and a quiet one with Lawrence and Eileen, little Miss Mary, and one or two other less boisterous members of the party.

Eileen was very quiet. Owing to the number in the boat, she and Lawrence, he rowing and she in the bow, were nearer than they had ever been before, and only the alluring darkness around them. The rowers shipped their oars for a little to listen to the others, and Lawrence turned round to the silent figure, half-sitting, half-reclining, beside him.

It was an entrancing night, warm and luscious and still, but for the lapping of the water against the boat, and the merry sounds from the other party. Overhead gleamed and glittered a million stars. All round, mysteriously grand, mysteriously lovely, towered the Mourne Mountains. Eileen felt herself breathing fitfully, under the spell of some ravishing, dream-like ecstasy. He was so close to her that his coat brushed against her arm, and the touch thrilled through all her being. Yet she never moved nor spoke, looking out into the fathomless, mystical depths of the night, one little hand resting lightly on the edge of the boat, unconsciously near to her companion.

And something in the enervating atmosphere, and the dream-like charm, again had that dangerously soothing effect upon Lawrence. Look where he would, think as he would, he could not turn his consciousness from the sense of that little soft hand so temptingly close to him in the darkness. What would she do if he followed his impulse, and clasped his own over it.

He tried to think of other things and forget it. If it had been any other girl--but not Eileen--no, he dare not trifle with Eileen. Yet it was such a little thing, and he wanted desperately at the moment to feel the touch of the little warm fingers in his. One more effort to forget--one more failure--and in the shadows his thin, artistic fingers closed over those others.

Eileen did not move nor speak. For the moment she was too much taken aback, and then she was only aware of a swiftly beating heart, and a heavenly sense of delight. But in a few moments, out of the shadows, shot the other boat straight toward them, with Paddy leaning over the side. She reached out her hand, and grasping at the bow that held Lawrence and Eileen. Her grasp closed over a dim white object, two hands--a man and a woman's--clasped together.

"Ah!" said Paddy to the darkness, with rather startling suddenness, and then subsided into silence.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE BALL.

Paddy was dressed first, because Eileen did her hair for her, and when she was ready she surveyed herself with critical eyes in the long pier gla.s.s.

"I rather think Paddy will surprise them to-night," she remarked.

"They'll be coming round and asking her where her snub nose and sallow skin are. I shall say, 'They are still there, good people, but don't you observe that her hair has entirely effaced everything but itself?'"

In truth she was right, for it would be hard to find lovelier hair than Paddy's, and under Eileen's skillful handling it had, indeed, overshadowed everything else.

It was of a rich auburn tint, as fine as silk, and had a way of waving and curling in thick ma.s.ses, with a beautiful natural wave, when given sufficient freedom. Paddy, in her perpetual haste, usually spoilt it by twisting it too tightly, but to-night Eileen had given the rich coils full play, and they curled themselves lovingly round Paddy's pretty forehead and slender neck in a way that somehow concealed her failings by drawing all attention to themselves. And then, too, she had the fine eyes of her country, and to-night they sparkled and danced in a way that was wholly bewitching. "Daddy," she called through into her father's room, "you just won't know me I look so beautiful. You never thought I could look even pretty, did you?--but just wait till you see!"

Then she danced into his dressing-room, and swept him a low courtesy.

"Begorra!" exclaimed the old General delightedly, "you'll take 'em all by storm yet. Get out your scouts, young men, and lay your plan of action, for there's a prize to be captured and carried off to-night, and no mistake."

"No, there isn't, then, daddy, for I don't mean to be captured nor carried off, nor anything else, as long as I can just stay here at The Ghan House with you and the motherkins," and she threw her arms round the old soldier's neck and hugged him until he cried out that he would be suffocated.

Then she smilingly surveyed her crumpled lace.

"I guess we'll get into trouble if we don't mind!" she remarked. "See what you've done to my lace!"

"What _I've_ done, indeed! I should like to know who had a finger in that pie beside yourself."

Paddy smoothed her lace and went downstairs a little thoughtfully, to see if Jack had come across yet from the rectory.

She found him standing in the hall, and when he saw her he exclaimed, "Is that you, Paddy?--is that really you?"

"Yes," with a little nod, "it's really me. You've always been at great pains to impress upon me that I'm hopelessly plain, Jack. Perhaps, now, you'll have the politeness to own you were wrong," and she looked up at him with her brilliant smile.

"I don't somehow feel sure that it's you yet, though," he answered.

"Where did you get all that hair from?"

"It's been there all along, but I couldn't be bothered to do it properly, so to-night Eileen did it."

"Isn't she dressed yet?"

"No; so I took the opportunity of coming down to be admired before I am outshone." She tripped across the hall and stood where the full light of the lamps shone upon her, throwing back her small head triumphantly, and unconsciously striking an att.i.tude full of grace and piquancy.