Fergus Desmond looked decidedly annoyed, but the frown quickly swept from his brow.
"Phinias," he said, turning to the man, "I want to have a few words in private with you. Take little missie in and introduce her to 'Herself' and the youngest baby."
"Oh, a baby!" cried Margot. "When--_when_ was it hatched? Does it look as old as young Aunt Norah?"
"Whist, whist, missie darlint, come this way," said Phinias.
He took the little hand and led the child into the tumble-down kitchen.
"No remarks," he said, "_if_ you please," dropping his voice to a whisper and introducing the little girl to "Herself," a handsome blue-eyed young woman of the true Kerry type of beauty. "The place is a bit shook up, I'm not goin' for to deny it; but neither will I let The Desmond be bothered puttin' it right. Now there's a straight tip for you, little missie. Annie, mavourneen, here's a swate little lady from Desmondstown, who I brought across the say all the way from England. She has come to pay us a call, kape her with yourself, Annie. I'll be back again in a twinklin'."
"When was the last baby hatched?" said Margot.
"Bless your heart, little missie," said Mrs. Maloney, "we don't talk of childer as hatched. He's two months old. I've called him Phinias after his dadda."
"Oh, oh, _let_ me hold him," said little Margot, "oh, oh, I'm so glad he wasn't hatched. My aunties are hatched about every second day and it makes them so terrible young, and so, so _queer_. Isn't he a perfect darling? May I kiss him, Mrs. Phinias--'cause I'm _so_ fond of your husband."
"Bless you, pretty one, to be sure you may."
While little Margot and "Herself" were engrossed over the two-months-old baby and Margot was expressing her intense delight that it was _really_ a very young baby--"_proper_ young," she said, raising her deep, dark eyes to the young mother's face--Fergus Desmond was giving way to a certain amount of anger. He was a good fellow, one of the best in Ireland, but he was eaten up with an Irishman's pride and he did not want his little niece to be "hail-fellow-well-met" even with so good a man as Phinias Maloney.
A slight consideration, however, caused him to see the absurdity of these feelings. He had no cause to abuse poor Phinias, who was one of his own father's best tenants. The frown, therefore, smoothed away from his brow and he walked beside Phinias into one of the meadows at the back of the tumble-down farm.