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“Well? Who is it?”

“It’s a priest, mam.”

Eveline caught the girl’s look of awe in her table glass. “Did he mention his business?”

“I didn’t dare for to ask, mam.”

“Where is he now?”

“Isn’t he in the hall?”

Idiot child. “Is the fire lighting in the small drawing-room?”

“It is, mam.”

“Show him to the big one so. And make tea, child. Is there cake?”

“Wasn’t there Madeira, only Cook said—”

Eveline cut short the elaboration of excuses. “Bring what you may find.”

“Only Cook says, mam, to ask will he be staying for dinner?”

“No. Neither will he stay for lunch. Now, will you make haste.” Perfunctory curtsy, then her tread on the clumsy stairs.

Eveline studied the presentiment in her glass. Not the pearls after all, not the studs, nor the jet. It would have to be the emerald eardrops now. She chose a tea-gown of bold and cloqué roses: cerise, chartreuse, grenadine. Eau de damas for scent. Her hair was not unparagoned, wisps strayed beyond her ears. Not en négligé, but as though stirred by a Celtic breeze.

Father Amen O’Toiler, direct from his first sermon to the parish. She could not remember had she engaged to attend. She would congratulate him nevertheless. Magnificent blow for Ireland. At last a leader has come among us. Feet now. The button boots or the Gibson laces? Gibsons to show her shins.

The Gibsons had not been brushed nor the laces ironed and she cursed her idle people. And the gown, she realized, was a shade perhaps French in its reach. Still she had exquisite shins, and should the priest pretend to look askance she would say the gown had been run up in Donegal. Yes, splendid relict contrives them. One sits at her hearth while she spins and sews and regales with tales of the old times. I suppose they do sew in Donegal?

She viewed the ensemble in the body-glass. A nation’s muse, la belle Irlande. A celebrated lady poet. Lionizing hostess. Her shoulders sank. Judge at the Glasthule Charity Bazaar. Some fallal or other. Choker with the cameo brooch? In the end she chose an amber pendant with a fly caught inside. She sang to herself, “Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber That ever the sorrowing seabird hath wept.” They gave it to Mother when Father was returned the third time. Grateful constituents. Oil of palm, she expected.

En grande tenue, she descended the stairs. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Stop it, now, one must be sober.

“Forgive me, Father, for keeping you waiting. The butler has run off to sea, the parlor maids have married their soldiers, which leaves me only the girl from the kitchen and she, God help us, is touched.”

She approached with her hand held out and the young man rose in jerks from the sofa. He fumbled in a farouche way, confused as to whether to kiss her hand or to shake it. At the last moment she glided past and pulled the bell-rope that hung by the hearth.

Nancy came rushing to the door. “Mam?”

“Be a good child and bring tea. Would tea be all right for you, Father?”

“Tea would be grand, Madame MacMurrough.”

“Isn’t the kettle only waiting, mam?”

“Very good. Make haste. Father O’Toiler, do sit down and tell me, do, how are things in the four green fields of Erin?”

She perched upon a fiddle-back and the priest returned to the sofa. He had chosen the center cushion and she watched as he sank lower and lower till his knees rose to be level with his chin. Whatever it is they teach in Maynooth these days, she considered, it is never command of furniture.

She saw his fingers fidget with the cardboard cover of his breviary. Would a leather breviary be a fitting gift?

The priest hemmed. “Things are growing apace, Madame MacMurrough. It is my fear, however, that in the parish of the Stream of O’Toole we are lagging somewhat.”

“The Stream of O’Toole, father?”

“It is the translation of Glasthule from the Gaelic.”

“How inspiriting. You cannot conceive how proud I am to hear the ancient tongue spoken once more in my father’s house.”

He looked perplexed a moment, then graciously