shawl and a sallow-complexioned blanket,
"but the Captain's after sending these. Faith, they'll do ye grand!
Arrah, why not, asthore! Sure he'll never look at ye!"

These consisted of a long covert coat, a still longer pair of yellow
knitted stockings, and a pair of pumps.

"Sure they're the only best we have," continued Mary Ann Whooly,
pooling, as it were, her wardrobe with that of the lodger. "God's will
must be, Miss Muriel, my darlin' gerr'l!"

It says a good deal for the skill of Nora as a tire-woman that her
sister's appearance ten minutes afterwards was open to no reproach, save
possibly that of eccentricity, and the Inspector's gaze--which struck
the tire-woman as being of a singularly enamoured character for so brief
an acquaintance--was so firmly fixed upon her sister's countenance that
nothing else seemed to signify. It was by this time past two o'clock,
and the repast, which arrived in successive relays, had, at all events,
the merit of || combining the leading features of breakfast, lunch and
afternoon tea in one remarkable procession, Julia Connolly, having
inaugurated the entertainment with tumblers of dark brown steaming
whisky and water, was impelled from strength to strength by her growing
sense of the greatness of the occasion, and it would be hard to say
whether the younger Miss Purcell was more gratified by the mound of
feather-light pancakes which followed on the tea and buttered toast, or
by the almost cringing politeness of her elder sister.

"How civil she is!" thought Nora scornfully; "for all she's so civil
she'll have to lend me her saddle next week, or I'll tell them the whole
story!" (Them meant the sisterhood.) "I bet he was holding her hand just
before the pancakes came in!"

At about this time Lady Purcell, pursuing her peaceful way home in her
donkey chaise, was startled by the sound of neighing and by the rattle
of galloping hoofs behind her, and her consternation may be imagined
when the foxy mare and the colt, saddled but riderless, suddenly ranged
up one on either side of her chaise. Having stopped themselves with one
or two prodigious bounds that sent the mud flying in every direction,
they proceeded to lively demonstrations of friendship towards the
donkey, which that respectable animal received very symptom of
annoyance. Lady Purcell had never in her life succeeded in knowing one
horse from another, and what horses these were she had not the faintest
idea; but the side sadd