You'll not be forgettin' the names of them now, will ye? And while
I'm tellin' you, all the time you'll be thinkin' of St. Droid, for it's
his day. It was nothin' till him, St. Droid, that he lived in a cave, you
understan'? Wasn't his face like the sun comin' up over the lake at
Ballinhoe in the month of June! Well, it doesn't matter if you've niver
seen Ballinhoe--you understan' what I mean. Well, then come out intil the
gardin, darlins. Shure, I'm achin' to tell you the story--as fine a
love-story as iver was told to man and woman."
So it was that Louise with eyes alight-for Patsy had a voice that could
stir imagination in the dullest--so it was that Louise and the others
went out into the moonlit garden, the prairie around them like an endless
waste of sea. There they placed themselves in a half circle around Patsy,
who sat upon a little bench, with his back to the big spreading elm-tree,
which by some special gift had grown alone over the myriad years, defying
storm and winter's frost, until it seemed to have an honoured permanence,
as stable as the prairie earth itself.
As they seated themselves, there was renewed in Louise the feeling she
had at supper-time, when she had imagined--or had her senses accurately
divined? that Orlando was near, so sure had been the sensation that she
had expected Orlando to enter the room where they sat. Now it was on her
again, and somehow she felt him there with her.
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