"Oh, that poor little fellow?" said Dick, laughing, but with a touch
of discomposure; "_I_ didn't put him there. What's the matter
with him, any how? Why, he hasn't been at the job three months! Give
the man time, Mary, give him time! I'll engage you'll all be in love
with him by this time next year!"

Mrs. Twomey glanced at Miss Coppinger, and replied with decorous
piety:

"God grant it!"

She then, with an admirable assumption of respect for her superiors,
and zeal for her office, moved past her visitors into the dairy.

Dick Talbot-Lowry hesitated a moment or two, then he laughed again,
and strode after her into the dark dairy; Miss Coppinger followed him.
Mrs. Twomey, a tiny and almost imperceptible bundle, was already on
her knees in a corner, scrubbing a glistening metal churn, and so
engrossed in her task as to be unaware of her visitors.

"Look here, Mary," began the Major, with a touch of severity; "what's
all this about Doctor Aherne?"

Mrs. Twomey rose from her knees, dried her little scarlet claws in her
apron, and stood to attention. Having opened the debate by calling
fervently upon her God to witness that she knew nothing of the matter,
she proceeded, like a solo pianist, to run her fingers, as it were,
lightly over the keys. Passing swiftly from her own birth, upbringing,
invincible respectability, and remoteness from all neighbours, or
knowledge of neighbours, she coruscated in a cadenza in which the