Not that her friends utterly
failed to lure her into it. She might well have been the victim of
hysterics, but she was only distrait, pensive and gently smiling, with
the smile of a good heart. Smiling with her had ever taken the place of
conversation. It was an apology for not speaking when she could not
speak what she felt.
Once during the meal she seemed to start slightly, as though she heard
a familiar sound, and for some minutes afterwards she seemed to be
listening, as it were, for a knock at the door, which did not come.
Immediately after that, Patsy, happy in sitting down to table with "the
quality"--for such they were to him--because he saw that Louise must be
distracted, and because he had seen story-telling, many a time, draw
people away from their troubles even more than music, said:
"Did you remember the day it is, anny of you? Shure, it's St. Droid's
Day! Aw, then, don't you know who he was? You don't! Well, well,
there's no tellin' how ignorant the wurruld can be. St.
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