To insure its discovery, she picked up Butler’s heavy-rimmed spectacles which he employed always when reading, and laid them on it.  For a moment she felt very strange, somewhat like a thief—­a new sensation for her.  She even felt a momentary sense of ingratitude coupled with pain.  Perhaps she was doing wrong.  Her father had been very good to her.  Her mother would feel so very bad.  Norah would be sorry, and Callum and Owen.  Still, they did not understand her any more.  She was resentful of her father’s attitude.  He might have seen what the point was; but no, he was too old, too hidebound in religion and conventional ideas—­he never would.  He might never let her come back.  Very well, she would get along somehow.  She would show him.  She might get a place as a school-teacher, and live with the Calligans a long while, if necessary, or teach music.

She stole downstairs and out into the vestibule, opening the outer door and looking out into the street.  The lamps were already flaring in the dark, and a cool wind was blowing.  Her portmanteau was heavy, but she was quite strong.  She walked briskly to the corner, which was some fifty feet away, and turned south, walking rather nervously and irritably, for this was a new experience for her, and it all seemed so undignified, so unlike anything she was accustomed to doing.  She put her bag down on a street corner, finally, to rest.  A boy whistling in the distance attracted her attention, and as he drew near she called to him:  “Boy!  Oh, boy!”

He came over, looking at her curiously.

“Do you want to earn some money?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied politely, adjusting a frowsy cap over one ear.

“Carry this bag for me,” said Aileen, and he picked it up and marched off.

In due time she arrived at the Calligans’, and amid much excitement was installed in the bosom of her new home.  She took her situation with much nonchalance, once she was properly placed, distributing her toilet articles and those of personal wear with quiet care.  The fact that she was no longer to have the services of Kathleen, the maid who had served her and her mother and Norah jointly, was odd, though not trying.  She scarcely felt that she had parted from these luxuries permanently, and so made herself comfortable.

Mamie Calligan and her mother were adoring slaveys, so she was not entirely out of the atmosphere which she craved and to which she was accustomed.

Chapter XLVI

Meanwhile, in the Butler home the family was assembling for dinner.  Mrs. Butler was sitting in rotund complacency at the foot of the table, her gray hair combed straight back from her round, shiny forehead.  She had on a dark-gray silk dress, trimmed with gray-and-white striped ribbon.  It suited her florid temperament admirably.  Aileen had dictated her mother’s choice, and had seen that it had been properly made.  Norah was refreshingly youthful in a pale-green dress, with red-velvet cuffs and collar.  She looked young, slender, gay.  Her eyes, complexion and hair were fresh and healthy.  She was trifling with a string of coral beads which her mother had just given her.