A Fair Emigrant, Chapter XXXII-XXXIV [pp. 359-384]

A FAIR EMICRA NT.
"If you find them, Betty, keep them for me here till I come
back. Don't come into the house, or you will ruin me."
And away went Bawn to interview Lord Aughrim.
His lordship was standing at the window of Bawn's little par lor, wondering at the prettiness of the plain cottage-room, but
wondering more at the kind of place in which he found Miss
Ingram. Surely there must be some mistake. Truly it was a
sweet little room: window-sills turned into banks of flowers,
brown floor spread with mats of goat-skin, short, deep-colored
cottage-curtains, and a great bowl of old-fashioned flowers on the
table. What fancy had the fair American to lodge herself so
humbly? He must ask Alister Fingall where he had found so
improving a tenant. Perhaps Alister himself was turning model
landlord; there was no knowing what might happen in these
topsy-turvy days. Out in the orchard was she? How charming! He was sorry he had not gone to look for her there And then the door opened and a high-pitched voice, shrill
and cracked, made him turn round, to confront a stout-looking
country-woman in a bonnet and cloak suggesting Noah's Ark,
and with a remarkable redness of nose and chin.
"Och! och! yer lordship! Are ye not sittin' down? To
think of a gintleman like you standin' on yer feet in me parlor."
"I wanted to see Miss Ingram," said his lordship.,
"Troth an' I'm Miss Gingham meself, an' a dacent body, too,
though yer honor is so short with me."
"Gingham! I said Ingram."
"If I was born Gingham I can't make meself Ingram to please
yer lordship, an' if ye have any business wi' me yer welcome.
It's not every day a body can hold transaxions wi' a lord. If
ye'll please to sit down-"
"Thank you. I have no business with you at all. I came to
see a lady whose name is Ingram."
Miss Gingham struck her stick on the floor and went off into
an explosion of noisy laughter. "Ha! ha! ha! It's the American leddy yer maybe lookin' afther. Sure an"ye made a great
mistake so, in comin' here, Lord Aughrim-"
"I was told Shanganagh."
"Shanganagh, ay! But it be to be the Shanganagh up at
the top o' Glenan-just where the windy bush always has a rag
of a cloud on it. There's two Shanganaghs, wan with wan'n'
an wan with two. We only keep wan'n' here."
"The top of Glenanl! Worse and worse! What can have
taken her up there?" muttered his lordship, quite bewildered.
VOL. XLV.-24
I 887.]
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