Page 278 - The snake's pass

266 " the snake's pass. ;
" Thanks, Andy, but I think not unless you tell
;
Mr. Dick that we have had a pleasant journey this
morning."
"
" Nothin' but that ?—to nobody ?
"
" Who to, for instance, Andy ?
"There's Miss Norah, now! Shure girruls is always
fond iv gettin' missages, an' most iv all from people
"
what they're not fond iv !
"
" Meaning me ?
" Oh, yis oh, yis if there's wan more nor another
! !
what she hates the sight iv, it's yer 'an'r! Shure didn't
1 notice it in her eye ere yistherday night, beyant at the
boreen gate ? Faix ! but it's a nice eye Miss Norah has !
Now, yer 'an'r, wouldn't an eye like that be betther for a
young gintleman to luk into, than the quare eye iv yer
fairy girrul—the wan that ye wor lukin' for, an' didn't
find !
The sly way in which Andy looked at me as he said
this was quite indescribable. I have seen sly humour in
the looks of children where the transparent simplicity of
their purpose was a foil to their manifest intention to
pretend to deceive. I have seen the arch glances of
pretty young women when their eyes contradicted with
resistless force the apparent meaning of their words ; but
I have never seen any slyness which could rival that of
Andy. However, when he had spoken as above, he
seemed to have spent the last bolt in his armoury
and for the remainder of the drive to Recess he did not
touch again on the topic, or on a kindred one.