General John Regan

an apron. But she had not found time to wash her face. This was not her fault. Washing is a serious business. In Mary Ellen's case it would have taken a long time if it were to be in the least effective. Doyle's call was urgent.

"Why didn't you come when you heard me calling you?" he said.

Mary Ellen looked at him with a gentle tolerant smile. She belonged to a race which had discovered the folly of being in a hurry about anything. She knew that Doyle was not really in a hurry, though he pretended to be.

"Amn't I coming?" she said.

Then she looked at the stranger. He, being a stranger and apparently a man of some other nation, might perhaps really be in a hurry. Such people sometimes are. But his eccentricities in no way mattered to Mary Ellen. The wisdom of the ages was hers. The Irish have it. So have eastern peoples. They will survive when the fussy races have worn themselves out. She gave the stranger one glance of half contemptuous pity and then looked at the motorcar.