“It’s Uncle Daniel with Mr. Curphy and Nessy.”

“Nessy, of course,” said Aunt Bridget grumpily, and then she told me in a confidential whisper that she was a much-injured woman in regard to “that ungrateful step-daughter,” who was making her understand the words of Scripture about the pang that was sharper than a serpent’s tooth.

As the new-comers entered I saw that Nessy had developed an old maid’s idea of smartness, and that my father’s lawyer was more than ever like an over-fatted fish; but my father himself (except that his hair was whiter) was the same man still, with the same heavy step, the same loud voice and the same tempestuous gaiety.

“All here?  Good!  Glad to be home, I guess!  Strong and well and hearty, I suppose? . . .  Yes, sir, yes!  I’m middling myself, sir.  Middling, sir, middling!”

During these rugged salutations I saw that Alma, with the bad manners of a certain type of society woman, looked on with a slightly impertinent air of amused superiority, until she encountered my father’s masterful eyes, which nobody in the world could withstand.

After a moment my father addressed himself to me.

“Well, gel,” he said, taking me by the shoulders, as he did in Rome, “you must have cut a dash in Egypt, I guess.  Made the money fly, didn’t you?  No matter!  My gold was as good as anybody else’s, and I didn’t grudge it.  You’ll clear me of that, anyway.”

Then there was some general talk about our travels, about affairs on the island (Mr. Curphy saying, with a laugh and a glance in my direction, that things were going so well with my father that if all his schemes matured he would have no need to wait for a descendant to become the “uncrowned King of Ellan"), and finally about Martin Conrad, whose great exploits had become known even in his native country.

“Extraordinary!  Extraordinary!” said my father.  “I wouldn’t have believed it of him.  I wouldn’t really.  Just a neighbour lad without a penny at him.  And now the world’s trusting him with fifty thousand pounds, they’re telling me!”

“Well, many are called but few are chosen,” said Mr. Curphy with another laugh.

After that, and some broken conversation, Aunt Bridget expressed a desire to see the house, as the evening was closing in and they must soon be going back.

Lady Margaret thereupon took her, followed by the rest of us, over the principal rooms of the Castle; and it was interesting to see the awe with which she looked upon everything—­her voice dropping to a whisper in the dining-room.  I remember, as if the scene of carousing of the old roysterers had been a sort of sanctuary.

My father, less impressed, saw nothing but a house in bad repair, and turning to my husband, who had been obviously ill at ease, he said: 

“Go on like this much longer, son-in-law, and you’ll be charging two-pence a head to look at your ruins.  Guess I must send my architect over to see what he can do for you.”