The young O'briens

Book excerpt: " Inside the hired omnibus there was a dead silence. Outside the rain lashed drearily against the window panes. From the corner where Molly sat there came a dismal, despairing sniffle, drowned, before its finish, by Denis's superlatively cheerful voice. "Sure, 'tis a rough night entirely!" he observed airily. Nell gave a sudden quick little laugh with a queer end to it. "So it is!" she said, and her effort after cheerfulness gave the remark a surprised tone, as if she had not noticed before that the night was rough. Sheila Pat sat silent in her corner, her slim little body stiff and erect, a bag and a box clutched tight in her small arms. Afterwards, later that night, she found that her arms ached. There was desperation in that tight clutch of the bag and the box. Suddenly Mr. O'Brien spoke; he recognised the futility of ignoring what was in everyone's mind. "Well," he said, "a year soon passes, after all, and I hope we shall be back in about ten or eleven months." "But—but not—" came a watery stammer from Molly's corner, but Nell broke in hurriedly. "I—I wonder will you look different, dad?" "Oh, yes," her mother laughed the pretty laugh that was just like Nell's, "I shall be a horrid, stout old woman! Even Sheila Pat won't acknowledge me then!" Sheila Pat said nothing......"