. And to do it without
leave is what I wouldn't care to risk."

"If you don't want to marry her," said Doyle, "I'd be glad if you'd let
her alone the way she'd be able to do her work. It's upsetting her mind
you are with the way you're going on."

"Is it true what they tell me," said Moriarty, "that the
Lord-Lieutenant's coming to the town?"

"I think we may say it is true," said Dr. O'Grady.

"To open the statue you're putting up to the General?"

"'Open' isn't the word used about statues," said Dr. O'Grady, "but
you've got the general idea right enough."

"What I was saying to Mary Ellen," said Moriarty, "is that seeing as
she's the niece of the General----"

"She's no such thing," said Doyle, "and well you know it."

"The doctor has it put out about her that she is," said Moriarty, "and
Mary Ellen's well enough content. Aren't you, Mary Ellen?"

"I am surely," said Mary Ellen. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Look here, Moriarty," said Dr. O'Grady, "if you've got any idea into
your head that there's a fortune either large or small coming to Mary
Ellen out of this business you're making a big mistake."

"I wasn't thinking any such thing," said Moriarty. "Don't I know well
enough it's only talk?"

"It will be as much as we can possibly do," said Dr. O'Grady, "to pay
for the statue and the incidental expenses. Pensioning off Mary Ellen
afterwards is simply out of the question."

"Let alone that she doesn't deserve a pension," said Doyle, "and
wouldn't get one if we were wading up to our knees in sovereigns."

"So you may put it out of your head that Mary Ellen will make a penny by
it," said Dr. O'Grady.

"It wasn't that I was thinking of at all," said Moriarty, "for I know
you couldn't do it. My notion--what I was saying to Mary Ellen a minute
ago--is that if the Lord-Lieutenant was to be told--at the time that he'd
be looking at the statue--whenever that might be--that Mary Ellen was the
niece of the General----"

"If you're planning out a regular court presentation for Mary Ellen,"
said Dr. O'Grady, "the thing can't be done. No one here is in a position
to present anyone else because we have none of us been presented
ourselves. Besides, it wouldn't be the least use to her if she was
presented. The Lord-Lieutenant wouldn't take her on as an upper
housemaid or anything of that sort merely because she'd been presented
to him as General John Regan's niece."

"It wasn't a situation for Mary Ellen I was thinking of,