Comerford said, her face lighting up.

A charming girlish face looked in at the open door.

"May I? Is it Lady O'Gara whom my dearest Mamma so greatly loves?"

There was the slightest foreign intonation in the voice,--something of
deliberate utterance, as though English was not the language of the
speaker.

The girl came into the room and towards them. She was charming. Her
hair curled in rings of reddish brown on her little head. Her eyes
were grey with something of brown in the iris: her eyebrows strongly
marked. She had a straight beautiful little nose, lips softly opening,
a chin like that of the Irish poet's "Mary Donnelly," "round as a china
cup." There was something softly graceful about her as she came into
the room. She looked down, then up again. Her eyes,--were they grey?
They were brown surely, almost gold. Her little head was held as
though she courted a caress.

"I am so glad you have come back, Stella," Lady O'Gara said, fascinated
straight off by this charming vision.

"I wonder how Mamma stayed away so long," Stella returned. "The sweet
house, the beautiful grey country." She took Lady O'Gara's hand and
kissed it lightly; yet with an air of reverence,--"the beloved people."

"The country will not prove too grey for you, I hope, Stella," Lady
O'Gara said, feeling touched and pleased by the girl's air of homage.
"My husband's mother, who was an Italian, said that the grey skies made
her weep when first she came to Ireland. They were so unlike Italian
skies."

"I must be Irish then," said the girl, "for I adore them. Even when it
rains I shall not weep."

"She has something of your colouring, Mary; don't you think so?" Mrs.
Comerford asked.

"Yes, perhaps--more golden."

She was feeling surprised at herself. This girl made more appeal to
her than Eileen Creagh whom she had had with her from childhood. This
girl touched some motherly chord in her which Eileen had never
awakened. She wanted to stroke her dear curls, to be good to her. Yet
she had been telling herself all those years, that she had no need for
a daughter, having Terry.

CHAPTER VII

BRADY'S BULL

The meeting between Eileen Creagh and Stella Comerford brought the
flying dimple to Lady O'Gara's cheek. She watched them as though they
were young children meeting in the shy yet uncompromising atmosphere of
the nursery.

Stella was inclined to be friendly and then drew back, chilled by
something she detec