‘Papa is disgusted at your having beaten him the other night,’ said Miss Gwynne to Rowland.

‘I think Mr Gwynne got tired,’ said Rowland modestly.

‘What affectation,’ thought Miss Gwynne, as she said, ’oh, no! he says you are the best player.’

‘I disclaim that entirely,’ said Rowland.  ’I merely beat two games out of three, and we had not time for another.’

Rowland had been, according to promise, to dine and play chess with Mr Gwynne; Miss Gwynne had dined with them, but had left them after dinner to follow their own devices, whilst she had followed hers, and did not reappear during the evening.  Mr Gwynne had reproached her for her absence, and she had declared that she hated to be so long without talking, and that chess and young Prothero were perfect antidotes to conversation.

’That ancient, Saracenic game, as Mr Jonathan Prothero calls it, played by a Goth,’ she said, ‘is beyond my store of politeness.’

Mrs Prothero and Miss Gwynne went to see the poor Irish girl; they found her rather better, and able to speak to them with some degree of composure.  The fever and its accompanying delirium had abated, and the danger was past; but, as is usual in such cases, extreme weakness was the result.

‘God bless you, my ladies,’ she murmured, as Miss Gwynne stooped over her to inquire how she did, and Mrs Prothero took her thin hand.  ’I am better, thank ye; I can see and understand, and know now all that you have done for the wretched beggar.’

Here the poor girl’s tears began to flow.

‘We only wish to see you get well,’ said Miss Gwynne softly, ’and then we can help you to find your friends.’

’I have no friends in the world miss, asthore; my father died years ago, and my mother, brother, and sister all died of this horrible famine and pestilence! oh me! oh me!’

The tears flowed still faster, and Mrs Prothero begged her to be silent, and not to excite herself; but with restless eagerness she went on, as if anxious to pour forth her sorrows whilst she felt the strength to do so.  It was remarkable that her English was very good, and that, with the exception of an occasional Irish epithet of endearment, you would scarcely have discovered her country.  Indeed, the Welsh peculiarities of expression and accent sometimes appeared, so that it would have been difficult to say where she was born or brought up.

’I am going to look for my friends, if I live, and then, may be, I may be able to repay you for your kindness to me, a poor, wretched wanderer on the face of God’s earth.  If you’ll be pleased to listen whilst I have the strength, I will tell you my story.

’My mother was a Welshwoman, born in some part of South Wales; she was the daughter of a clergyman, and respectably brought up.  Her father taught her a great many things that we ignorant people in Ireland used to think a great deal of.  Oh, she was a good and tender mother to me, ladies, avourneen.