The great bell clanged out its hospitable boom for supper. Supper was a great institution at the Castle. It was the meal of the day. A heterogeneous sort of repast, at which every conceivable eatable, every available luxury, graced the board. From tea, coffee, and bread and butter to all sorts of rich and spiced dishes, nothing that the good-humored Irish cook could produce was absent from the squire's supper table.

It was the one meal in the day at which he himself ate heartily. The squire ate enough then to satisfy himself for the greater part of the twenty-four hours; for, with the exception of a frugal breakfast at eight in the morning, which consisted of tea, bread and butter, and two new-laid eggs, he never touched food again until the great evening meal, which was tea, supper, and dinner in one.

People had easy times at Castle Mahun. There was no stiffness anywhere. The rule of the house was to go where you pleased, and do what you liked. Once a visitor there, you might, as far as Squire O'Hara was concerned, be a visitor for all the rest of your natural life. Certainly no one would think of hinting at the possibility of your going. When you did take it into your head to depart, you would be warmly invited to renew your visit at the first available opportunity, and the extreme shortness of your stay, even though that stay had extended to months, would be openly commented upon and loudly regretted. But, as in each fortress there is one weak spot, and as in every rule there is the invariable exception, the Squire did demand one thing from his own family and his visitors alike, and that was a punctual attendance in the lofty dining hall of the Castle at suppertime.

Bridget heard the bell twanging and sounding, and knew that the summons to appear at supper had gone forth. She mopped away her tears with a richly embroidered cambric handkerchief, stuffed it into her pocket, looked with a slight passing regret at some muddy marks which Bruin had made on her silk dress, and prepared to return to the house.

"I wonder, Bruin," she said, "if my eyes show that I have been crying? What a nuisance if they do. I'd better run down to the Holy Well before I go into the house, and see if a good bathe will take the redness away. Come along, Bruin, my dog, come quickly."

Bruin trotted on in front of Bridget. He knew her moods well. He had comforted her before now in the summerhouse. No one but Bruin knew what bitter tears she had shed when she was first told she must go to England to school. Bruin had found her in the summerhouse then, and she had put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and then she had mopped her wet eyes and asked him as she did to-night if they showed signs of weeping, and also as to-night the dog and the girl had repaired to the Holy Well to wash the traces of tears away.

Bruin went on in front, now trotting quickly, and never once troubling himself to look back. They soon reached the little well, which was covered with a small stone archway, under which the water lay dark and cool. Rare ferns dipped their leaves into the well, and some wild flowers twined themselves over the arch, which always, summer and winter, kept the sun from touching the water. It was a lonely spot not often frequented, for the well had the character of being haunted, and its waters were only supposed to act as a charm or cure on the O'Hara family. Bridget, therefore, stepped back with a momentary expression of surprise when she saw a woman bending down by the well in the act of filling a small glass bottle with some of its water.

She was a short, stout woman of between fifty and sixty. Her hair was nearly snow-white; her face was red and much weather-beaten; her small gray, twinkling eyes were somewhat sunk in her head; her nose was broad and retroussÉ, her mouth wide, showing splendid white teeth without a trace of decay about them.

The woman looked up when she heard a footstep approaching. Then, seeing Bridget, she dashed her glass bottle to the ground, and rushing up to the young girl, knelt at her feet, and clasped her hands ecstatically round her knees.

"Oh, Miss Biddy, Miss Biddy!" she exclaimed. "It's the heart-hunger I have been having for the sake of your purty face. Oh, Miss Biddy, my colleen, and didn't you miss poor Norah?"

"Of course I did, Norah," said Bridget. "I could not make out where you were. I asked about you over and over again, and they said you were away on the hills, sheep-shearing. I did think it was odd, for you never used to shear the sheep, Norah."

"No," said Norah, "but I was that distraught with grief I thought maybe it 'ud cool me brain a bit. It's about Pat I'm in throuble, darlin'. It's all up with the boy and me! We has waited for years and years, and now there don't seem no chance of our being wedded. He's no better, Miss Biddy. The boy lies flat out on his back, and there aint no strength in him. Oh! me boy, me boy, that I thought to wed!"

"And where is Pat, Norah?" said Bridget. "I asked about him, too, and they said he had been moved up to a house on one of the hills, to get a little stronger air. I was quite pleased, for I know change of air is good for people after they get hurt. And why can't you be wed, Norah, even if Pat is hurt? I should think he'd want a wife to nurse him very badly now. Why can't you have a wedding while I'm at home, Norah macree?"

"Oh, me darlin'—light of me eyes that you are—but where's the good when the boy don't wish it himself? He said to me only yesterday, 'Me girl,' said he, 'it aint the will of the Vargen that you and me should wed this year, nor maybe next. We must put it off for a bit longer.' I'm close on sixty, Miss Bridget, and Pat is sixty-two, and it seems as if we might settle it now, but he don't see it. He says it was the will of the Vargen to lay him on his back and that there must be no coorting nor marrying until he's round on his feet again. I am about tired of waiting, Miss Bridget; for, though I aint to say old, I aint none so young nayther."

"But you have a lot of life left in you still, Norah," said Bridget. "I'll go and talk to Pat to-morrow, and we'll soon put things right. I was so dreadfully sorry to hear that he was hurt. And did you get my letter that I wrote to you from school?"

"To be sure, darlin'! and why wouldn't I? and it's framed up in Pat's cottage now, and we both looks at it after we has said our beads each night. It was a moighty foine letter, Miss Biddy! Pat and me said that you was getting a sight of larning at that foreign school."

"And did you get the money I sent you, Norah? I sent you and Pat two whole pounds in a postal order. I was so glad I had it to give you. Two pounds means a lot of money to an Irish boy and girl. Weren't you glad when you saw it, Norah? Didn't it make you and Pat almost forget about the accident and the pain?"

"Oh, Miss Bridget, alanna!" Norah's deep-set, good-natured, and yet cunning eyes were raised in almost fear to the young girl's face. "Miss Bridget, alanna, there worn't never a stiver in the letter. No, as sure as I'm standing here; not so much as a brass bawbee, let alone gold. Oh, alanna, someone must have shtole the beautiful money. Oh, to think of your sending it, and we never to get it; oh, worra, worra me!"

Bridget turned rather pale while Norah was speaking.

"I certainly sent you the money," she said. "Didn't I tell you so in the letter?"

Norah fumbled with her apron.

"Maybe you did, darlin'," she said evasively.

"But don't you know? It was principally to tell you about the money that I wrote."

"Well, you see, darlin'—truth is best. Nayther Pat nor me can read, and so we framed the letter, but we don't know what's in it; only we knew from the foreign mark as it was from that baste of a school, and that it must be from you."

"I think I must run in to supper now, Norah; there are some visitors come to the Castle, and I'm awfully late as it is, and father may be vexed. I'll ride up on Wild Hawk to-morrow to see Pat, and you had better be there, and we'll find out where that money has got to. Good-night, Norah; but first tell me what you were doing at the Holy Well?"

"Don't you be angry with me, Miss Biddy. I thought maybe if I brought a bottle of the water to Pat, and he didn't know what it was, and he drank some as if it was ordiner water, that it would act as a love philter on him, and maybe he'd consint to our being married before many months is up. For I'm wearying to have the courtship over, and that's the truth I'm telling ye, Miss Bridget. I am awfully afraid as Pat has seen me gray hairs, and that they are turning the boy agen me, and that he'll be looking out for another girl."

"If he does I'll never speak to him again," said Bridget slowly. "You so faithful and so good! but now I must go in to supper, Norah."

Bridget ran scrambling and panting up to the house. Bruin kept her company step by step. He entered the large dining hall by her side, and walked with her to the head of the board, where she sat down in a vacant chair near her father's side.

"You're late, alanna," he said, turning his fine face slowly toward her with a courteous and yet reproachful glance.

She did not reply in words, but placed her hand on his knee for a moment.

The touch brought a smile to his face. He turned to talk to Janet, who, neatly dressed, and all traces of fatigue removed, was sitting at his other side.

Lady Kathleen was attending to Sophy's wants at the farther end of the table; but between them and the squire were several other visitors. These visitors were now so accustomed to paying long calls at Castle Mahun that they had come to look upon it as a second home. They were all Irish, and most of them rather old, and they one and all claimed relationship with Squire O'Hara. Nobody said much to them, but they ate heartily of the good viands with which the table was laden, and nodded and smiled with pleasure when the squire pressed them to eat more.

"Miss Macnamara, I insist on your having another glass of sherry!" the squire would thunder out; or, "Mr. Jonas O'Hagan, how is your lame foot this evening? and are you making free with the beef? It is meant to be eaten, remember; it is meant to be eaten."

Jonas O'Hagan, a very lean old man of close on seventy, would nod back to the squire, and help himself to junks of the good highly spiced beef in question. Miss Macnamara would simper and say:

"Well, squire, to oblige you then, I'll have just a leetle drop more sherry."

The business of eating, however, was too important for the squire to do much in the way of conversation.

Janet's small-talk—she thought herself an adept at small-talk—was kindly listened to, but not largely responded to.

Bridget whispered to herself, "I must really tell Janet another day that father must be left in peace to eat the one meal he really does eat in the twenty-four hours."

Bridget herself did not speak at all. She scarcely ate anything, but leaned back against her chair, one hand lying affectionately on Bruin's head. Anxious and troubled thoughts were filling her young mind. What had become of the two pounds she had given Janet to put into Norah's letter?

She felt startled and perplexed. It was an awful thing to harbor bad feelings toward a visitor. All Bridget's instincts rose up in revolt at the bare idea. She thought herself a dreadful girl for being obliged to rush away to the old summerhouse to cry; but bad as that was, what was it in comparison to the thoughts which now filled her mind? Could it be possible that Janet, sitting there exactly opposite to her, looking so neat, so pretty, so tranquil, could have stolen those two sovereigns? Could the girl who called herself Bridget's friend be a thief?

Oh, no, it was simply impossible.

Bridget had already discovered much meanness in Janet May. Janet, with her own small hand, had led Bridget O'Hara into crooked paths.

But all that, bad as it was, was nothing—nothing at all in Bridget's eyes, to the fact that she had stooped to be just a common thief.

"I thought that only very poor and starving people stole," thought the girl to herself, as she broke off a piece of griddle cake and put it to her lips. "Oh, I can't—I won't believe it of her. The postal order must have been put into the letter, and someone must have taken it out before it reached Pat's hands. Perhaps the postal order is in the envelope all this time. When I ride over on Wild Hawk to-morrow to see Pat I'll ask him to show me the envelope. It would be a good plan if I took Janet with me. I can soon judge by her face whether she stole the money or not. Of course, if she did steal it, I must speak to her, but I can't do it on any part of the O'Hara estate. It would be quite too awful for the hostess to accuse her visitor of theft."

"Biddy, alanna—a penny for your thoughts," said the squire, tapping his daughter on her cheek.

"They are not worth even a farthing," she replied, coloring, however, and starting away from his keen glance.

"Then, if our young friends have done their supper, you'll maybe take them round the place a bit, colleen; they'll like to smell the sweet evening air, and to—— By the way, are you partial to dogs, Miss May; we have a few of them to show you if you are?"

"Oh, I like them immensely," said Janet. ("Horrid bores!" she murmured under her breath.) "I don't know much about them, of course," she added, raising her seemingly truthful eyes and fixing them on the old squire. "I had an uncle once; he's dead. I was very fond of him; he had a deerhound something like that one."

She nodded at Bruin as she spoke.

"Ah," said Mr. O'Hara, interested at once, "then you can appreciate the noblest sort of dog in the world. Come here, Bruin, my king, and let me introduce you to this young lady. This is a thoroughbred Irish deerhound, Miss May; I wouldn't part with him for a hundred pounds in gold of the realm."

The stately dog, who had been crouching by Bridget's feet, rose slowly at his master's summons and approached Janet. He sniffed at the small hand which lay on her knee, evidently did not think much of either it or its owner, and returned to Biddy's side.

"You won't win Bruin in a hurry," said the squire. "I doubt if he could take to anyone who hasn't Irish blood; but for all that, although he won't love you, since I have formally introduced you to each other he'd rather die than see a hair of your head hurt. You are Bruin's guest now, and supposing you were in trouble of any sort during your visit to Castle Mahun, you'd find out the value of being under the dog's protection."

"Yes," said Janet, suppressing a little yawn. She rose from her seat as she spoke. "Shall we go out, Biddy?" she said. "Will you take Sophy and me round the place as your father has so kindly suggested?"

"Certainly," said Bridget; "we'll walk round the lake, and I'll show you the view from the top of the tower. There'll be a moon to-night, and that will make a fine silver path on the water. Are you coming too, Aunt Kathleen?"

"Presently, my love, after I have been round to look at Minerva and the pups."

The three girls left the hall in each other's company.

Sophy began to give expression to her feelings in little, weak, half-hysterical bursts of rapture. "Oh, what a delightful place!" she began, skipping by Bridget's side as she spoke. "This air does revive one so; and what a view!" clasping her two hands together. "Miss O'Hara, how you are to be envied—you who live in the midst of this beauty. Oh, good Heavens, I can't stand all those dogs! I'm awfully afraid; I really am. Down, down! you horrid thing, you! Oh, please, save me; please, save me!" Sophy caught violent hold of Bridget's wrist, shrieked, danced, and dragged her dress away.

About a dozen dogs had suddenly rushed in a fury of ecstasy round the corner. Some of them had been chained all day, some shut up in their kennels. All were wild for their evening scamper, and indifferent in the first intoxication of liberty to the fact of whether they were caressing friends or strangers. They slobbered with their great mouths and leaped upon the girls, licking them all over in their joy.

The charge they made was really a severe one, and Sophy may easily have been forgiven for her want of courage.

Janet, who disliked the invasion of the dogs quite as much as her sister, favored that young person now with a withering glance; but Bridget spoke in a kind and reassuring tone.

"I'm so sorry they should have annoyed you," she said; "I might have known that you weren't accustomed to them. Daddy and I like them to jump about in this wild fashion, but I might have known that it wouldn't be pleasant to you. Down, this minute, dogs; I'm ashamed of you! Down, Mustard; down, Pepper; down, Oscar; down, Wild-Fire. Do you hear me? I'll use the whip to you if you don't obey."

Bridget's fine voice swelled on the evening breeze. Each dog looked at her with a cowed and submissive eye; they ceased their raptures, and hung their drooping heads.

"To heel, every one of you!" she said.

They obeyed, and the girls entered the shady but steep walk which hung over the lake.