“Not yet.  The storm howled so in the chimney that I was too frightened to eat.  Mayn’t I bring it out here and eat it with you—­and listen to you talking?” begged Flora.

“Sure ye kin.  Set right down an’ I’ll fetch yer tray,” said Mother Nolan.

“Aye, that ye kin—­an’ welcome ye be as June,” said the skipper quietly.

The singer glanced at him shyly, uncertainly, with a question in her beautiful eyes.

“You are very kind—­you are all very kind,” she said.  “I fear that I was very—­rude to you, Mr. Nolan.  I—­I struck you—­but you were rough.  And I—­called you names—­which I did not mean.”

“Let it pass,” said the skipper, gazing at the bacon on his plate.  “I bes rough, as ye say.  It bes the way I was born an’ bred.  But I was meanin’ no disrespect to ye, as the holy saints be me jedges.  Sure I—­I couldn’t help meself!”

So it happened that Miss Flora Lockhart ate her breakfast beside the kitchen stove with Mother Nolan, the skipper and young Cormick.  The way she ate was a wonder to watch, all so easy and quiet and polite.  Mother Nolan wagged her head over it, as much as to say that such table manners would bring no good to such a place as Chance Along, and young Cormick could do nothing but stare at the beautiful stranger.  She talked brightly, with the evident intention to please.  It was her nature to want to impress people favorably toward her—­and after all, she owed a great deal to these people and, for a few weeks longer at least, was entirely in their power.  She saw that the skipper was a strong man—­a man to be feared—­and that her charms had ensnared his wild heart.  Therefore she must play the game artfully with him instead of continuing the crude and honest method of slaps in the face.  She believed that he would prove harmless and docile if skilfully handled, but as dangerous as a wounded animal if insulted and rebuffed.

After breakfast she asked for Pat Kavanagh.  She did not remember his name, but spoke of him as the funny old fellow with the violin and the wooden leg.

“If he were here we could have a fine concert,” she said, “and forget all about the terrible wind and snow whirling around the house.”  Her laughing face was turned to the skipper.

“Sure then, Pat bes the lad we wants,” said the skipper, grinning like one entranced by a glimpse of heaven itself.  There was a golden vision in his head, poor fool, of this beautiful creature sitting beneath his roof for all time, her red lips and wonderful eyes always laughing at him, her silvery voice forever telling him to forget the storm outside.  The future looked to him like a state of bliss such as one sometimes half-sees, half-feels, in dreams.

“I’ll go fetch him an’ his fiddle,” he said, pulling on his heavy jumper.

“Now don’t ye be losin’ yerself in the flurry,” continued Mother Nolan.

“It bes nought, Granny,” returned the skipper.  “Sure I kin feel me way on me hands an’ knees.”