‘O, it’s only two steps up the quay.’

Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:

‘If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I’ll see you home if you are really obliged to go.’

But Miss Ivors broke away from them.

‘I won’t hear of it,’ she cried. ‘For goodness’ sake go in to your suppers and don’t mind me. I’m quite well able to take care of myself.’

‘Well, you’re the comical girl, Molly,’ said Mrs. Conroy frankly.

‘Beannacht libh,’ cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase.

Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs. Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour—she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.

At the moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost wringing her hands in despair.

‘Where is Gabriel?’ she cried. ‘Where on earth is Gabriel? There’s everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!’

‘Here I am, Aunt Kate!’ cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, ‘ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary.’

A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table, and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin, and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers, and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting, and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.

Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now, for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table.

‘Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?’ he asked. ‘A wing or a slice of the breast?’

‘Just a small slice of the breast.’

‘Miss Higgins, what for you?’

‘O, anything at all, Mr. Conroy.’

While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef, Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane’s idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose, but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast