"How old is Drusilla McNab?" asked The Desmond.
"She's thirty-five, father, and she lives at Rockingham, and Malachi could drive the kiddie over there each morning and fetch her back in the evening. But we couldn't offer Miss Drusilla less than £20 a year. We couldn't in all decency."
"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed The Desmond. "Twenty pounds, when we have scarcely got so many pence. Can't you and I teach the bit thing, Fergus?"
"No, we can't," said Fergus. "She must be taught properly and like a real, out-and-out lady. Miss McNab was educated in Paris and the pushkeen is going to be a wonderful beauty. She must be taught according to her station. She'll make a fine match some day."
"I want her to stay with me," said The Desmond. "I don't wish for any of those fine matches for the pretty dear."
"Well, it will come, father; for she is the handsomest little girl I ever looked at."
"And why not," said old Desmond, his eyes flashing a sort of blue fire. "Isn't she her mother's child?"
"Yes, but she is better-looking than Kathleen. Don't fret, old man, accept the fact. She has got a look of our Kathleen, but she must take after her father, too. She doesn't get those eyes only from our Kathleen. Why, they look as though you could never reach to the back of them."
"To be sure," said The Desmond. "Well, I can't part with her; that's plain. I'm alive all over again, and quite young with the thought of having her in the house."
"It'll take money to settle this matter, father," said Fergus. "If this John Mansfield is her real uncle, he mayn't want to give her up, and he can't be forced to give her up. It strikes me we'll have to pay him. Money settles most difficulties. Now my notion is this. You have turned against the Comte St. Juste, although you never clapped eyes on him. When our Kathleen took him for better or worse, you said you wouldn't see him or write to him or have anything to do with him. Then our girleen died after giving birth to the little one and then the poor Comte died, also, and you never breathed the name, never once, of the little colleen. But she came to you of her own accord and you have lost your heart to her."
"Lost my heart! I tell you, Fergus, my man, I'm mad about her."
