OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



Mrs. Quintan, and she was an old friend of our hostesses. 

 We think we enjoyed that afternoon as well as any of our 

 excursions / and certainly we laughed as much as ever. 

 Mrs. Quinlan came creaking down in a flowing black silk, 

 which brought me instantly back to the Sundays of my 

 childhood and the genteel appearance of my mother's maid. 

 We sat in the early Victorian drawing-room and had tea 

 and Albert biscuits, listening with unremitting amusement 

 to the conversation between Miss Caroline and Mrs. 

 Quinlan. Be it mentioned that the owner of Curriestown 

 has long been a widower and that the question of his re. 

 marriage has never ceased to agitate the bosoms of his 

 neighbours since the event, so many years ago, which 

 qualified him once again for the matrimonial market. 

 Mrs. Quinlan stood, her perfectly unwashed hands crossed 

 on the last button of her black silk bodice / her faded face 

 all over lines, querulous, good-humoured, quizzical, under 

 the untidy wisps of her yellow-grey hair/ and, while we 

 ate and drank, she flowed continuously on, stimulated by 

 a question here and there, or an appropriate comment, 

 "And indeed, Miss Caroline, it's very busy I am. For 

 sure, didn't the master wire there'd be twelve of them here 

 the day after to-morrow ? It's getting all the rooms ready 

 I am, and the Professor here and all. Not that he's much 

 trouble, the crathur. Them's his shoes, in the hall beyant 

 I'm sorry he's out, then, for it's the queer-looking body he 

 is. He's wearing the kilt, ye know, Miss Carrie. And 

 not a word out of him but Irish! Musha, I don't know 

 what he'd be saying IIt's a deal of store they do be setting 

 on speaking the Irish now, Miss." 



Here Mrs. Quinlan, seized with a paroxysm of silent laugh- 

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