North, South and over the Sea Part 26

"Sure maybe he won't," whispered Elleney back, consolingly. "He'll be apt to be pickin' wan o' the young ones--I shouldn't wonder if it was yourself, Maggie."

"If it wasn't for the money I dare say you'd have as good a chance as the rest of us," said Maggie, mollified by this tribute; "but of course the father wouldn't hear of any girl without a fortun'."

By an odd freak of fate, however, it was Elleney who first had speech with Brian Brennan when he came to seek a wife in Mrs. McNally's house. Elleney, indeed, was not in the house when his eyes first fell upon her; she was kneeling on the doorstep, scrubbing it with might and main. He had driven out from Dublin instead of coming by train, and arrived in consequence earlier than was expected. Elleney wore the pink cotton frock in which she went about her work of a morning; her sleeves were rolled up, and her skirt pinned back. Her face was flushed with a lovely colour, and the breeze lifted loose strands of her nut-brown hair, as she squatted back on her heels in answer to the stranger's salutation.

"Is Mrs. McNally within? I think she's expecting me."

"Oh," said Elleney, looking up with those big astonished eyes of hers, "is it Mr. Brennan?"

"It's that same," responded Brian cheerfully.

Elleney jumped up, knocking over her pail in her agitation, and wiped her little damp hands on her ap.r.o.n.

"Me a'nt is in the shop," she said hurriedly. "If ye'll walk inside I'll call her in a minute."

"A-ha!" said Mr. Brian, "you're one o' the nieces, are ye? Are the rest anyways like ye?"

"They wouldn't take it as a compliment if ye were to say so," replied Elleney. "This way, sir."

The big young man followed her into the parlour. He was a very big young man, and he had a beautiful head of hair, black and curly; and he looked extremely well fed and pleased with the world in general.

"Bless me, child, what a show ye are!" exclaimed Mrs. McNally, when Elleney breathlessly summoned her. "Look at your sleeves, and your skirt tucked up an' all. I declare I'm ashamed of my life--"

"How could I know it was him?" protested Elleney.

"To be sure, to be sure, none of us expected him; an' any way it doesn't matter about you. Here, pull down your sleeves, dear, and take my place for a bit. Where's Ju?"

"She's above, doin' her hair, and Henny's sewin' the bows on her dress."

"Well, well, I'll call them. You'll have to keep the shop goin'

altogether, Elleney, this day. All the girls is wild to have a chance, an' I know ye won't mind doin' a bit extra."

"I wonder which it will be," meditated Elleney. "If I was him I'd take Nanny."

But Mr. Brian seemed quite unmoved by Nanny's rollicking charms. He was, indeed, to some extent struck by the appearance of Juliana, who, with her hair done up into what her mother called a "s.h.i.+n-on"--a fas.h.i.+on much affected when she was a young woman--and wearing a silk dress with flounces innumerable of the terra-cotta hue beloved, for some occult reason, of her kind, entered the room with an air of stately magnificence. The young visitor was very respectful to Juliana, and spoke in particularly genteel tones when addressing her.

But his eyes wandered perpetually towards the door, and an acute observer might have detected a certain lengthening of visage at each fresh arrival on the scene.

When the seven specimens of maidenhood, from among whom he was expected to make his choice, were at length seated in various constrained att.i.tudes about the room, a dead silence fell, broken only by an occasional nervous remark from Mrs. McNally, and a monosyllabic response from the wooer. The relief was general when the "decent body," engaged to help for the day, opened the door with a very black hand, kicked it still further back with a gaping shoe, and finally entered the room bearing a large tray.

A repast, which the lady aforesaid subsequently described as "sumpchus," soon adorned the board, and Mrs. McNally, with a deprecating giggle, advised Brian to sit next the partner he liked best.

He hesitated, and cast a baffled glance round the room.

"Sure the whole of the family isn't here, is it?" he inquired.

"How many more would you want?" returned Juliana, with a playfulness strongly tinged with asperity.

"Didn't I see another young lady an' I comin' in?" he persisted.

"Who in the name of wonder did he see, m'mah?" whispered Henrietta, while the others looked blank.

"I b'lieve 'twas Elleney let him in," said Mrs. McNally. "The poor fellow, he's that well-mannered he thinks bad o' sittin' down without her. We're all here that can be here at present, Mr. Brian," she remarked aloud. "Little Elleney that ye seen awhile ago is mindin' the shop for me. We'll keep a bit hot for her till I go to take her place."

"Oh! that indeed?" said Brian rather blankly. "Isn't it clever of her to be able to mind the shop, and she so young? I s'pose she's the youngest of them?"

"Well, there isn't much to choose between her and Maggie there,"

returned his hostess; "and, indeed, I may say the same o' my daughter Anna Maria. There is but a year between the three, one way or the other. Well, since you're so bashful, Mr. Brian, I'd best choose a place for ye. Will ye sit there on me right, between Bridget and Juliana? There does be safety in numbers, they say, so ye needn't be afeard."

"Afeard is it?" responded Brian, with simulated jocularity, though his countenance still wore an expression of dismay. "Troth! it 'ud be a poor lookout if I was that easy frightened. 'Faint heart,' ye know."

But, though Mr. Brennan was very gallant and witty, the entertainment was felt by every one to be somewhat flat, and the relief was general when the young man proposed to go outside and smoke a bit of a pipe.

Mrs. McNally, however, considered it her duty to protest.

"Sure, we're not that particular," she observed, with her jolly laugh.

"Don't be goin' out in the cold, Mr. Brian."

"Why, what sort of a fellow would I be at all if I could forget myself that way," he returned, rising with alacrity. "Would ye have me pizenin' the young ladies? I hope I know me manners better."

"There's no denyin' he has elegant manners," commented his hostess, as the door closed behind him. "I never wish to see a nicer young man.

Well, girls, what do ye think of him!"

"The poor fellow was shy, m'mah," said Juliana. "He kept blus.h.i.+n'

every time I looked at him."

"A-ah, g' long!" exclaimed Bridget, with startling warmth. "Not a blush on him, then! Sure, it was his natural colour; he has a beautiful complexion."

"His eyes was rovin' from one to the other," cried Anna Maria, giggling; "I was near dyin' with laughin'. You could see as plain as anything he was axin' himself all the time, "Will I have this one,' or 'Will I have that one?'"

"A-ah, not at all," cried Juliana, reddening. "I didn't see a sign of his eyes rovin'. Anybody with a grain of sense 'ud know his mind was pretty well made up."

"Listen to that, now!" laughed Nanny, who was certainly good-tempered.

"You're out there, Ju. No; but I'll tell you the way it was with him.

Says he to himself, looking at you, 'That one is the eldest and a fine girl altogether, but her nose is too long.' An' then he'd look round at Bridget, 'She's got a nice bit o' money,' he'd say, 'but she's a bit too old for me.' An' then he'd look at me, 'A nice healthy lump of a girl,' he'd say, 'but too many freckles.' An' then Maggie maybe 'ud have a turn--"

"Och, don't be goin' on with such nonsense, child," interrupted her mother, quick to observe certain tokens of an impending storm. "Don't let him find yez quarrellin' an' fightin' when he does be comin' back.

Wait till I tell yez all he's afther tellin' me about his own place. I questioned him a bit afore yez come down."

The girls crowded eagerly round her, and she repeated with unction the description of the various glories which awaited the future Mrs. Brian Brennan.

Every one had forgotten Elleney and her little bit of dinner; every one, that is, except the new-comer, who, after casting a nervous glance at the parlour window on finding himself outside the house, had made straightway for the almost deserted shop.

Customers were not many at that hour of the day, and Elleney had only sold a pound of bacon and a couple of bootlaces since her aunt's departure. She was sorting ribbons with a somewhat melancholy face when Brian pa.s.sed through the gla.s.s door and made his way to the counter.

"Is that where ye have yourself hidden?" he inquired gaily. "They thought to keep ye shut up out o' me sight, but I was a match for them as cute as they were. 'Twas a shame for them not to let you come in to dinner."

"Sure somebody had to mind the shop," returned Elleney. Then her little pink and white face dimpled all over with smiles. "Have ye chose yet, Mr. Brian?" said she.

"Bedad, I think I have," quoth Brian, gazing at her admiringly.