her voice of velvet (of purple velvet, he decided) mourned for Patrick Sarsfield, or lamented with Emer for Cuchulain, or thrilled her listener with the sudden glory of “The Foggy Dew.”  Larry’s own voice was habitually exhausted by the cart-tail oratory in which he daily expended it; it was enough for him to listen and look, shutting his mind to the past, living, as ever, in the present, like a wise man, because its bounty sufficed him.

CHAPTER XXXIV

At a little before this time a sufficiently epoch-making scene had taken place between Dr. Mangan and his daughter, following not long on that day when the elephant had conveyed his captive to the depths of the jungle.

“Tishy!” said the Big Doctor, looming large at the door of the dining-room where his daughter was engaged in trimming a hat, “come down to the surgery a minute; I want you.”

The feather to which Miss Mangan had just imparted the correct “set,” was only fixed in position with a precarious pin, none the less, Tishy, albeit vexed, did not delay.  She had a well-founded respect for the Fifth Commandment, as far, at all events, as her father was concerned.  She abandoned the hat, and followed the Doctor through the narrow hall-passage and into the surgery, with a promptness that she was not wont to exhibit in obeying an order that was not convenient.

Dr. Mangan had seated himself at his desk, and was writing.  Tishy stood by the seat dedicated to patients; she wished to imply that she had been interrupted in her work, and that her time was of value.

“There now,” said Dr. Mangan, thumping the envelope that he had just closed and directed, on the blotting-paper, with his big fist, “I want you to run round to Hallinan’s with this for me.”

“Is it a hurry?” asked Tishy, unwillingly.

“It is.  It’s to order rooms for Larry Coppinger.  He’s coming to stay in town till the election’s over.  Sit down there a minute.”

Tishy obeyed, and the Doctor surveyed her attentively.  The position that is assigned to patients in a doctor’s consulting room is one that faces the light, pitilessly, inescapably; but for Tishy, this was a negligible disadvantage.  A peacock butterfly looks its best in sunlight, and Tishy’s dark bloom, and intent eyes of luminous grey, faced the glare of October sunlight with confident unconcern.

“A right-down handsome girl!” he had called her, to himself, more than-once; now, he thought, she had good looks enough for any man in Europe.  It was not his habit to betray his feelings; but as he sat there, appraising her, weighing her beauty, as a jeweller might appraise some rich-hued ruby that a kind fate had placed in his hands, sheer pride in her made him smile, and he was hard put to it to keep up the severity that he believed the occasion exacted.

“I’ve a couple of things to say to you,” he resumed, “and you know as well as I do that I’ve no fancy for saying things twice.  I’ve seen Ned Cloherty sneaking about the Mall very often lately—­like as if he was waiting for somebody.  I’m not saying it’s for you or me he’s waiting; you might know that better than I do.  But he’s no great ornament to the view there, or anywhere else, as far as I can see!”