"You wouldn't object to having that poor little girl stay with us, would you, dear?" Mother Beckett asked me, patting my hand when she had revealed her ideas concerning the O'Farrells.
"Oh, no," I answered, looking straight into her inquiring eyes, and trying not to change colour. "But you shouldn't speak as if I had any right----"
"You have every right!" she cut me short. "Aren't you our daughter?"
"I love you and Father Beckett enough to be your daughter," I said. "But that gives me no right----"
"It does. Your love for us, and ours for you. I don't believe we could have lived through our sorrow if it hadn't been for you and Brian. He saved our reason by showing us what Jim would want us to do for the good of others. And he taught us what we couldn't seem to realize fully, through religion, that death doesn't count. Now, since I've been ill, I guess you've saved my life. And much as I want to see Jim, I want even more to live for Father. He needs me--and we both need you and Brian. You two belong to us, just as if you'd been given to us by Jim. We want to do what's best for you both. I thought, for Brian, it would be good perhaps to have Dierdre----"
"You're not sure? I wasn't at first. I mean, I wasn't sure she was good enough. But since the night when she threw herself in front of him to keep off the dog, I saw she cared. Maybe she didn't know it herself till then. But she's known ever since. You've only to see the way she looks at him. And she's growing more and more of a woman--Brian's influence, and the influence of her love--such a great influence, dear! It might be for his happiness, if----"
"I don't think Brian would marry Dierdre or any girl, unless his sight came back," I said. "He's often told me he wouldn't marry."
"Was that before he went to Paris with the O'Farrells? Things have been rather different since then--and a good _deal_ different since the night we met Jack Curtis with Sirius."
"I know," I admitted. "But if Brian wanted to change his mind about marrying, he couldn't. Neither he nor Dierdre O'Farrell have a penny----"
"Brian's got as much as we have," the dear woman assured me.
"Do you think he'd take your money to marry on? No, dearest! Brian's very unworldly. So far, he hasn't worried about finances for the present. The future is different. If he doesn't get back his sight----"