Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/138

Rh her—some of them gentlemen’s sons—the divil an eye she had for anyone except Roger; and although he might pick from twinty of the bluest-blooded ladies in Ireland any day he liked, Norah was his one delight.

“Every servant on the place knew how things were going, but the ould man was so blind with pride that he saw nothing at all; stranger than all, the two childher believed that ould Bob guessed the way tilings were with them an’ was plazed with them. A worse mistake was never made. He never dhramed that his son Roger would think of any girl without a fortune or a title.

“Misthress O’Brien must have known, but, being tendher-hearted and loving and, like all women, a trifle weak-minded, hoped, in spite of rayson, that her husband would consint to let the childher marry. Knowing ould Bob as she knew him, that was a wild thought for Misthress O’Brien to have; for if ever there was a stiffer, bittherer, prouder, more unforgiving, boistherous man I haven’t seen him, and I’ve lived five thousand years.”

Darby, scowling mighty important, raised his hand. “Whist a bit,” he says; “you raymind me of the bal- Rh