looking after of her to me.”

“I wonder he didn’t,” said Pinckney. “He spoke of you a good deal to me, spoke of you as his best friend; all the same he seemed set on the idea of us 37 taking care of the girl. He fell in love with Charleston and he cottoned to us; then, of course, there were the family reasons. Phyl’s mother was a Mascarene; my mother was her mother’s first cousin. Vernons belonged to the Mascarenes, my mother brought it to my father as part of her wedding portion. The Pinckneys’ old house was lost to us in the smash up after the war. So, you see, Phyl ought to be as much at home at Vernons as I am. Funny, isn’t it, how things get mixed up and old family houses change hands?”

37

“And when do you want to take her away?” asked Hennessey.

“Upon my word, I’ve never thought of that,” replied the other. “I want to see things settled up here and to go over the accounts with you. Berknowles said the house had better be let—I should think it would be easy to find a good tenant—then I want to go to London on business and get back as quick as possible. She need not come back with me, it would scarcely give her time to get things ready. There’s a Mrs. Van Dusen, a friend of ours who lives in New York, she’s coming over in a month or so and Phyl might come with her as far as New York. It’s all plain sailing after that.”

“Well,” said Hennessey, folding up the will and putting it in his pocket. “I suppose it’s all for the best, but it’s hard lines for a man to lose his best friend and see a good old estate like Kilgobbin taken off to the States—Oh, you needn’t tell me, if Phyl goes out there she’s done for as far as Ireland is concerned. Sure, they never come back, the people 38 that go there, and if she does come back it’ll be with an American husband and he master of Kilgobbin. I know what America is, it never lets go of the man or woman it catches hold of.”

38

“You’re not far wrong there,” said Pinckney. “You see, life is set to a faster pace in America than over here and once you learn to step that pace you feel coming back here as if you were living in a country where people are hobbled. At least that’s my experience. Then the air is different. There’s somehow a feeling of morning in America that goes through the whole day—almost—here, afternoon begins somewhere about eleven.”

Hennessey yawned, and the two men, rising from the table, left the room and crossed the hall to 

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