Our present business is to get them all back to Castle Richmond.
There had been some talk of their dining at Gortnaclough, because it was known that the ladies at Desmond Court dined early; but now that Clara was to return to Castle Richmond, that idea was given up, and they all got back to the house in time for the family dinner.
"Mamma," said Emmeline, walking first into the drawing-room, "Lady Clara has come back with us after all, and is going to stay here to-night; we are so glad." Lady Fitzgerald got up from her sofa, and welcomed her young guest with a kiss.
"It is very good of you to come," she said; "very good indeed.

You won't find it dull, I hope, because I know you are thinking about the same thing as these children." Lady Clara muttered some sort of indistinct little protest as to the impossibility of being dull with her present friends.
"Oh, she's as full of corn meal and pints of soup as any one," said Emmeline; "and knows exactly how much turf it takes to boil fifteen stone of pudding; don't you, Clara?
But come up-stairs, for we haven't long, and I know you are frozen.

You must dress with us, dear; for there will be no fire in your own room, as we didn't expect you." "I wish we could get them to like it," said Clara, standing with one foot on the fender, in the middle of the process of dressing, so as to warm her toes; and her friend Emmeline was standing by her, with her arm round her waist.
"I don't think we shall ever do that," said Mary, who was sitting at the glass brushing her hair; "it's so cold, and heavy, and uncomfortable when they get it." "You see," said Emmeline, "though they did only have potatoes before, they always had them quite warm; and though a dinner of potatoes seems very poor, they did have it altogether, in their own houses, you know; and I think the very cooking it was some comfort to them." "And I suppose they couldn't be taught to cook this themselves, so as to make it comfortable in their own cabins ?" said Clara, despondingly.
"Herbert says it's impossible," said Mary.
"And I'm sure he knows," said Clara.
"They would waste more than they would eat," said Emmeline.

"Besides, it is so hard to cook it as it should be cooked; sometimes it seems impossible to make it soft." "So it does," said Clara, sadly; "but if we could only have it hot for them when they come for it, wouldn't that be better ?" "The great thing is to have it for them at all," said Mary the wise (for she had been studying the matter more deeply than her friend); "there are so many who as yet get none." "Herbert says that the millers will grind up the husks and all at the mills, so as to make the most of it; that's what makes it so hard to cook," said Emmeline.
"How very wrong of them!" protested Clara; "but isn't Herbert going to have a mill put up of his own ?" And so they went on, till I fear they kept the Castle Richmond dinner waiting for full fifteen minutes.
Castle Richmond, too, would have been a dull house, as Lady Fitzgerald had intimated, had it not been that there was a common subject of such vital interest to the whole party.

On that subject they were all intent, and on that subject they talked the whole evening, planning, preparing, and laying out schemes; devising how their money might be made to go furthest; discussing deep questions of political economy, and making, no doubt, many errors in their discussions.
Lady Fitzgerald took a part in all this, and so occasionally did Sir Thomas.