d sea roaring. It was
praying I was for the morning, for the night makes the storm more
fearsome. Now, sit down, Miss O'Connor, and you, miss; the tea is made.
It's only bread and butter I can offer yous, but it is all I have, and
welcome you are to it."

Kathleen sat down, but Sylvia Jackson, to Mrs. Sheridan's intense
concern, refused to eat or drink.

"Thank you, I am not hungry," she said.

Kathleen was hurt by what she regarded as a want of courtesy. Everything
was scrupulously clean, if poor, and the widow willingly gave all that
she possessed. To make amends for her friend's refusal, Kathleen drank
more tea and consumed a larger amount of bread and butter than she had
ever done before. Then, after a chat on the affairs of Grey Town, which
Mrs. Sheridan made a kind of prolonged solo, Kathleen and Sylvia rose to
go.

Mrs. Sheridan followed them to the gate, talking vigorously. As they
rode away her voice might still be heard as she chanted Kathleen's
praises to Michael.

"What a dreadful woman!" said Sylvia.

Kathleen was already deeply hurt by her friend's conduct, and she fired
up into intense indignation at this remark.

"Dreadful!" she cried. "Mrs. Sheridan is a good, honest woman. She has
given her life for her children, and she is the soul of good nature."

Sylvia laughed good-humouredly at this championship.

"A very excellent person, no doubt," she said, "but an ungovernable
tongue. She never ceased talking while we were there. No wonder himself
died peacefully. How he must have longed for death--and peace!"

"You don't understand----," Kathleen began.

"I don't profess to understand. I belong to another school to you. My
set detests the prosaic and commonplace; we must have the clever and
original. Platitudes are detestable to us, unless they come clothed in a
brilliant metaphor. Homely virtues I neither pretend to understand or
admire. I much prefer eccentricity, even clever vice."

Kathleen laughed tolerantly, recognising that further argument or
expostulation was vain.

"Shall we try the lower bridge?" she asked.

"Of course we must. Denis Quirk is to meet us, and I wouldn't disappoint
him for anything. Now, there is a man after my own heart, strikingly
ugly, so ugly as to be beautiful, and wonderfully clever, sometimes so
rude as to be quite original, full of a sardonic humour--an absolutely
unique type. Denis Quirk is the sort of man I might condescend to love,
and if ever I do love