Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/211

Rh an hour and a quarter—ye know, Mr. Harry, how graspin' she is."

Peter appealed to him as one man to another.

"She begun with askin' about me estate in dear old Ireland. Bein' only eighteen months old when I left it, I could n't remember many details, but I used me imagination an' done the best I could. I told her there was two lions sittin' on the gate-posts holdin' me coat-of-arms in their paws; I told her there was two towers to the castle, and a peacock strollin' on the lawn; an' then f'r fear she'd be gettin' suspicious, I thought to change the subject. 'Yes, 'tis a beautiful house,' I says, 'but it ain't so grand as some. The biggest place in the neighbourhood,' I says, 'is Castle McGarrah'—the name just popped into me head, Miss Ethel.

"'McGarrah!' she says, 'that is me own name.'

"'The divvil!' thinks I. 'I 've put me foot in it now.' But 'twas too late to go back. 'Possibly the same family,' says I,