“Oh! don’t go in,” said Susy.  “It’s Aunt Church, and she’s dreadful.”

“An old lady?” cried Kathleen.  “I love old ladies.”

She pushed past Susy and made her appearance in the parlor.

Now, Mrs. Church was a person of discernment.  She strongly objected to gay dress on the person of little Susy Hopkins; but, as she expressed it, she knew the quality.  Had she not lived all her earlier days as housekeeper to a widowed nobleman?  Could she ever forget the fine folk she helped to prepare for in his house?  Now, Kathleen, standing in the tiny room, had a certain look of wealth and distinction about her.  Mrs. Church seemed to sniff the fine quality air in a moment; she even managed to rise from her chair and drop a little curtsy.

“If it weren’t for the rheumatics,” she said, “I wouldn’t make so bold as to sit before you, miss.”

“But why shouldn’t you?  I’m sorry you suffer from rheumatism.  May I bring a chair and come and sit near you?  Are you Mrs. Hopkins—­Susy Hopkins’s mother?”

“Indeed, my dear, I’m truly thankful to say I am not.  And what may your name be, my sweet young lady?”

“Kathleen O’Hara.”

“Oh, dear, but it’s a mouthful.”

“I’m not English,” said Kathleen; “I’m Irish.  Do you know, in our country we have old ladies something like you.  A good many of them have dresses like you; and they live in little cottages, and we bring them up to the castle and give them good food very, very often.  There are twelve of them, and they all live in their tiny cottages close to each other.  We make a great fuss about them.  They love to come to the castle for tea.”

“The castle!” said Mrs. Church, more and more impressed.  “I should think they would like it.  Who wouldn’t like it?  It’s a very great honor for an old lady to be entertained to her tea in a castle.  And so you live in a castle, my bonny young lady?”

“Yes; my father owns Carrigrohane Castle.”

“Eh, love! it is a mouthful of a word for me to get round my lips.  But never mind; it is but to look at you to see how beautiful and good you are.”

“And you are beautiful, too,” said Kathleen.  “I mean, you are beautiful for an old lady.  I love the beauty of the old.  But I want to see Mrs. Hopkins, and I want to see Susy.  Susy is a great friend of mine.”

Mrs. Church opened her eyes very wide; her mouth formed itself into a round O. An eager exclamation was about to burst from her lips, but she restrained herself.

“And a very good little girl Susan Hopkins is,” she said, after a moment’s pause; “and a particularly great friend of mine, being, so to speak, my grand-niece.—­Mary, my dear, call your little girl in.”

Mrs. Hopkins, in some trepidation, crossed the room and called to Susy, who was still sulking in the shop.

“My visitor and all,” she kept saying.  “And I wanted to have her all to myself; I had such a lot to say to her.  I never saw anybody quite so horrible as Aunt Church is to-day.”