Next morning Brown entered the dining-room, and said Mr. Plunkett was in the study, and wished to see Mr. Blair.

"Ask him to come in here, Brown," said Mr. Blair.

"Take a cup of tea, and tell me your business now, Plunkett," he said, as Mr. Plunkett was ushered in. "I have promised Mr. Dalrymple to look at his moss agates at ten, so I have not a moment to give you after breakfast."

"And I shall be gone to the outlying farms by the time you come back," returned Mr. Plunkett, without seating himself. "A most unpleasant event has occurred, and I consider it my duty to inform you of it without delay. Peter Daly has just been with me.

"And it appears, from his confused account, that yesterday morning his stepdaughter, Theresa Curran, was sent to my house with the amount due for half a year's rent. The money was not paid, and the girl has disappeared. Her mother became anxious yesterday afternoon, and despatched a boy to make inquiries in the village. The girl had not been seen, and what gives the affair a serious aspect is this."

Here Mr. Plunkett drew out a pocket-book, and began to search among the papers; selecting one, he laid it before Mr. Blair, and continued:

"Yesterday evening, after dark, this paper was thrown into the cottage, and though it is meant to be of a reassuring character, it points to the conclusion that the girl has been forcibly abducted for the sake of the money in her possession."

Murtagh held his breath, and sat most unnaturally still for fear of betraying himself as he recognized his piece of paper.

Mr. Plunkett went on, "The writer is evidently a person of very little education; out of those three words two are wrongly spelt." Winnie's eyes sparkled with suppressed laughter, and she glanced at Rose.

"And," said Adrienne, who had risen, and was looking over her uncle's shoulder, "it has not even been written with a pen and ink."

The children began to lose all command of their countenances. They longed to be out of the room, but a sort of fascination kept them silent in their chairs. It did not occur to one of them that the simplest thing to do was to tell their story, and ask for the rent then and there.

"Everything," replied Mr. Plunkett, "tends to demonstrate that the offence has been perpetrated by members of the lowest class of society. But I permit myself to hope that it may yet prove less serious than at first sight it appears."

"Go down to the cottage, Plunkett, if you have time, and I should not be at all surprised if you find her sitting quietly by the fire," said Mr. Blair. "My countrymen have a wonderful aptitude for all that savors of romance."

"I have been down, sir," said Mr. Plunkett, "and the fact is that the girl and the rent have disappeared. The romance is not wanting. Mrs. Daly has got it into her head that a man, Patrick Foy by name, who has a grudge against her for marrying Daly, has killed the girl, and sent this letter to hinder any search being made till he has had time to leave the country."

Adrienne's eyes opened wide with mixed astonishment and incredulity.

"It is quite possible, Miss Blair," said Mr. Plunkett. "The folly and passion of these people is beyond all reasonable comprehension; you perceive," he continued, turning to Mr. Blair, "that is it advisable to put the matter at once into the hands of the police."

A sort of gasp from Bobbo made Mr. Plunkett turn his head; but Mr. Blair, suddenly remembering the moss agates, pushed out his chair, saying with a smile:

"Well, well, Plunkett, you know I am one with you in your crusade against these barbarians; if it turns out to be serious," he added more gravely, "don't let any question of expense weigh with you. The poor girl must be found."

"I shall institute proceedings at once," replied Mr. Plunkett, "and if there is evidence to confirm the mother's notion we will, of course, have Pat Foy taken up."

The two gentlemen walked away down the passage, and the children were at last able to escape.

"I say," exclaimed Bobbo, "here's a pretty go!"

"Hadn't we better say where she is at once?" said Rose, anxiously; "somehow policemen—"

"You'd better look out, Rose," said Murtagh, mockingly; "you'll be taken up before you know where you are and clapped into prison. You're the eldest of us, you know."

Though Murtagh could not resist the temptation to laugh at Rose, he was serious enough when he turned to Winnie and asked:

"What's to be done now? How shall we ask him for the rent?"

Winnie thought deeply for a minute or two; then she burst out ecstatically with: "Oh, Murtagh, wouldn't it be fun to keep her hidden, and have all the policemen and people searching, and Mr. Plunkett fidgeting and worrying! It would pay him out, and that policeman, too, for telling about me and Bobbo."

"No, no, Murtagh!" cried Rosie. "We'll be getting into an awful scrape."

"I don't think Theresa would think it much fun, Win," said Murtagh, shaking his head. "I think we'd better get the rent. The thing is—I say! isn't that old Plunkett himself on Black Shandy?"

He pointed to the avenue, where some one on a black horse was trotting away from the house.

"It is," replied Bobbo. "He's off to the farms now!"

It was useless to run after him; what was to be done? The children looked blankly at one another. Then Rose exclaimed vehemently: "Why didn't you ask him before he went, Murtagh? It was all your plan, and now what shall we do?"

"Ask him this evening instead," replied Winnie, coolly, while Murtagh looked troubled. "Never mind, Myrrh, it'll all come right in the end, because things always do. As we can't ask him now the first thing we had better do is just to get something from Donnie that will do for Theresa's dinner, and then go up and tell her."

"Poor Theresa!" said Murtagh, "she'll be awfully disappointed."

"I wish we'd never had anything to do with her," sighed Rose.

"No," said Murtagh; "because, you know, if she hadn't met us, perhaps she'd have gone home and been killed; so, of course, it's better this way."

"Yes, but supposing we don't get the rent!" suggested Rose, dolefully.

"Oh, we must get that. Nobody could refuse it after thinking she's dead and everything. If they don't find out before to-morrow, it will be all right."

"I wish to goodness to-morrow was come then!" ejaculated Bobbo, who remembered how very unpleasant the policeman's hand had felt on his shoulder that evening on the garden gate.

In this gloomy frame of mind they reached the island. Theresa had recovered from her terrors of the night before, and now feared only her stepfather.

It was impossible to comfort her, and notwithstanding Winnie's and Murtagh's confident assurances that everything would be settled on the morrow, the little party that dined on the island that day was very dreary and dismal.

The children stayed as long as they could to keep poor Theresa company, but towards four o'clock they thought it best to go and begin their watch for Mr. Plunkett.

"You mustn't expect us early to-morrow, Theresa," said Winnie; "on Sunday morning we can't get out before breakfast, because Donnie always comes and pomatums all our heads. Then we're dressed for church; then there's church; then there's dinner—oh, dear! I wish Sunday didn't come so often; we shan't be able to get up till the afternoon."

"Mornin' or evenin' it don't matter; I don't believe yez'll ever be able to get the rent," replied Theresa, disconsolately; and in that desponding condition they were obliged to leave her.

They wandered about down in the park, listening anxiously for the sound of Black Shandy's hoofs. The wind was very cold, and towards six o'clock the evening closed in dark and wet. Their teeth chattered and their clothes were soon soaked with rain. Still it was no use going home till they had seen Mr. Plunkett.

At last there was a sound of footsteps. The children ran eagerly forward in the hope that it might be Mr. Plunkett for some reason returning on foot, but it turned out to be a laborer going home from his work.

"Whatever are ye doing out here in the rain?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"We're waiting for Mr. Plunkett," replied Murtagh; "we want to speak to him."

"Ye won't speak to him to-night, then," returned the man. "He came home in the doctor's trap hours ago. Haven't ye heard the news?"

"What news?" exclaimed Murtagh.

"The news o' the shooting. He was shot at out o' the little wood across at the back o' Dolan's fields, an' he never was touched at all; only Black Shandy killed dead as a stone,—worse luck!"

The "worse luck" may have been meant as a lamentation for Black Shandy, but the tone in which it was uttered gave it an uncommonly different signification.

"Shot at!" exclaimed the children, excitedly.

"What an awful lot of funny things are happening!" said Murtagh. "Who shot at him?"

"Them as thought we've had enough o' him and his ways, I s'pose," replied the man. "And that's not a few. Good evening to yez; ye'd better be runnin' in out o' the rain."

"Yes, but look here," said Winnie. "Did they want to shoot him dead?"

"What d'ye suppose I know about it? Maybe it was only a bit o' fun, just to see whether they could hit a man or no when they tried," he replied, with a curious kind of laugh.

"Was he hurt? Were they caught?" inquired Bobbo.

"I don't know the rights of it, but there's nothing serious. Old Nick'll always take care of his own. He fell down with the horse, and they took him up, an' carried him into the farm; then the doctor was sent for, and after a bit the two o' them drove back here together. That's all I know about it. It's up at the house ye'll hear the whole story. But my old woman'll be looking out for me. Good night to yez." And this time he moved off quickly.

"Isn't it lucky he wasn't killed!" said Rosie. "We'd never have been able to get the rent then."

"I wonder why they always shoot people," said Winnie. "Last year when Mr. Dalrymple was in Italy they shot Mr. Williams, and now they've tried to shoot old Plunkett."

"Because they're agents," replied Murtagh, promptly. "And I don't exactly know what agents are, but it's something very bad. They're tyrants, and they oppress everybody. That man that was fishing with me and Pat O'Toole said Ireland would never be free till all the agents were killed."

"Are you quite sure old Plunkett's an agent?" asked Bobbo, with interest.

"Quite sure," replied Murtagh, "because they said so; and besides, can't we see he is ourselves? Isn't he always oppressing people?"

"Why doesn't the Queen banish them all out of Ireland?" said Winnie. "That's what I'd do if I were her."

"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Bobbo, laughing, "wouldn't it be a jolly lark if she banished old Plunkett?"

"Yes; but, Murtagh," said Rosie, "how are we going to get the rent? It's all very fine talking, but we never seem to get one bit nearer to it."

"And we're not likely to get a bit nearer to it, to-night," said Murtagh, with a sigh. "We've just got to wait till to-morrow morning. It's no use thinking about it. Here goes, Winnie; I'll race you to the house!"

They had some idea of staying up in their rooms till the dinner-bell rang; they did not feel in the mood to meet people and be asked questions about what they had been doing. But they had neither fires nor candles; they were cold and uncomfortable; and Murtagh soon remarked that he thought it was awful stuff staying up there in the cold.

"What's the good of it? We've often been in a row before, and, after all, people can't guess just by looking at us that we know where Theresa is."

"All right then," said Rosie; "let's go down. But don't let us seem to be cold or anything. Let's look as if nothing had happened." And she ran down-stairs as she spoke, gaily talking and laughing.

The other two children admired her plan, but they did not second it, and it was a very cold, hungry, dispirited-looking set of little people, who in another minute stood outside the schoolroom door.

"I hope the fire's not out," said Murtagh, as he groped for the handle.

He opened the door as he spoke, and disclosed to the children's somewhat astonished eyes a schoolroom looking so different from their ordinary place of refuge that it was hardly to be recognized. Not only was a bright fire blazing in the grate, but the whole room was in perfect order. The crimson window-curtains were drawn, the tea-table was decorated with a bouquet of fresh flowers; the books had got into the bookcases; the music into the music-stand; the more comfortable and respectable of the arm-chairs were disposed within reach of the fire; the brown moreen sofa had been dragged from its corner to occupy the place of honor at one end of the hearth-rug; and Nessa herself, in her pretty evening dress, was sitting on the sofa reading.

An undefined sensation of comfort crept over the children, but with it the elder ones had an unpleasant consciousness that somehow their wildness seemed suddenly out of place. They didn't feel quite as if they were in their own schoolroom, and they hesitated an instant in the doorway, wondering half-uncomfortably what Nessa would say to them. They were very quickly at their ease, however, for she looked up brightly as they entered, and exclaimed:

"Oh, there you are! I am so glad. I was expecting the dinner-bell to ring every minute, and I wanted to be here when you arrived. What do you think of it? Peggy and I have been working the whole afternoon."

"Awfully jolly!" said Murtagh, taking up a position on the hearth-rug, and surveying the room with a satisfied expression.

"How pretty you have made it look!" said Rosie. "What did you do to it?"

"What did we not do?" said Nessa. "Peggy scrubbed and brushed and polished, and I dusted and arranged, and pushed the furniture about. First I was going to settle it a little by myself, and then Mrs. Donegan came up and sent Peggy to help me."

"Well, I call this very jolly," said Winnie, who had thrown herself into a chair, and was looking round with a beaming countenance. "Doesn't it seem to you just a little bit like when we were at home, Murtagh?"

"Yes," said Murtagh, slowly. "Only it isn't papa, you know."

"That reminds me," said Nessa, as she rang the bell for tea. "Who are Cousin Jane and Emma, or Emily and Frankie? because I saw Uncle Blair for a minute at lunch time, and he said they were coming to stay here."

"Frankie coming!" exclaimed the children in delight.

"Oh, I am so glad!" continued Winnie. "He is such a dear little fellow, only he is so delicate; he is as old as Murtagh, really, but you wouldn't think he is more than seven or eight years old, and he's not a bit strong. Often we have to carry him just like Ellie; two of us put our hands together, you know."

"He's just the very best little fellow that ever was," said Murtagh, warmly. "Now he really is good. I don't know how he manages; he never even wants to do anything—I mean things he oughtn't to. I suppose he was just born so."

"I wish he was coming alone," said Bobbo.

"Why?" asked Nessa.

"Oh!" replied Murtagh, "because Emma's a prig, and Cousin Jane—well, Cousin Jane is a nuisance. Isn't she now, Rosie?"

"Oh, yes," replied Rosie. "You know she laughs at us; and she always teases us because we're so funnily dressed, and that isn't our fault. Donnie and Mrs. Plunkett settle all about that, and I'm sure I don't like being dressed as we are one bit; I often feel ashamed to go into church with all the funny colors we have to wear; and there's another thing, Emma hasn't half such pretty things as we used to have when we were with mamma!"

Rosie grew quite pink with indignation at the remembrance of what she had suffered by reason of Donnie's uneducated taste; and Nessa agreed that it was aggravating to have to wear clothes that one didn't like, and then be made fun of into the bargain.

"But tell me something," she continued; "are they all my cousins, too?"

"Oh, yes," cried Winnie, "so they are! Our cousins; doesn't that sound nice?"

"What's funny," said Murtagh, "is about Cousin Jane. She's our cousin, and Emma and Frankie are our cousins, too, because—Uncle William had a son. Oh, I never can remember that rigmarole; Rosie knows. Explain all about it, Rosie."

"You always begin wrong, Murtagh. That's why you can't remember," replied Rosie. "Uncle William was Uncle Blair's twin brother. Uncle William died and had a son."

"Had a son and died, you mean," cried Murtagh, "and the son married cousin Jane, and had another son called 'little Frankie,' and then he died too, and—"

"That means Frankie died," interrupted Winnie; "you're as bad as Rosie, Murtagh!"

"Well, but I couldn't say it any other way," replied Murtagh. "If I said, then he died too and had a son called Frankie, that would mean he had Frankie after he died. Perhaps he did; I'm sure I don't know; he's been dead a very long time, that's all I know about it, and Frankie's the very jolliest little son any one could ever have!"

"Uncle Blair said," Nessa continued, rising, "that they were making a driving tour through the hills, and that they would end here."

"What a pity you have to go," said Rosie; "it is so nice talking."

"Would you like to come to the drawing-room after dinner?" said Nessa. "Uncle Blair does not come till nine o'clock."

"Don't you mind us coming?" asked Murtagh. "Emma always said we're such a nuisance!"

"Oh, no; indeed you are not to me!" replied Nessa, with an earnest warmth that made the children look up at her with pleased faces.

"When we've finished tea," said Rosie, as the door closed behind Nessa, "we might get some hot water and wash our hands and faces, don't you think, Murtagh?"

"All right!" said Murtagh, nodding his head.

The result of their resolution was that Nessa found in the drawing-room four shiny little faces reflecting the lamplight, four tightly brushed heads, and four pairs of hands as beautifully clean as such weather-beaten little hands could be.

The children had, in fact, made themselves so clean that they felt half-ashamed, but Nessa appreciated their little attention.

"How nice you all look!" she said kindly, and then she sat down amongst them, and they spent a very happy hour chatting round the fire. It was so nice talking, as Rosie said, and they were very happy to be thus possessed of Nessa's undivided attention. So when bed-time came they ran gaily enough up their little staircase, and as they separated on the landing Murtagh exclaimed:

"You were quite right, Win, things always do come right in the end; only to-morrow morning and all our troubles'll be over!"