"Nat a fear but he'll be home at mail-time. An' a purty house he's got fur till ax a sthranger intil."
"Now, Mrs. O'Halloran, it's the loveliest situation I've seen within a hundred miles," I replied, as I set Cleopatra at liberty. "And the way that the place is kept reflects the very highest credit upon yourself." Moreover, both compliments were as true as they were frank.
"Dacent enough for them that's niver been used till betther. There's a dale in how a body's rairt."
"True, Mrs. O'Halloran," I sighed. "I'm sure you must feel it. But, my word! you can grow the right sort of children here! How old is the little girl?" My custom is to ask a mother the age of her child, and then express incredulity.
"Oul'er nor she's good. She was five on the thurteenth iv last month."
"No, but seriously, Mrs. O'Halloran?"
"A'm always sayrious about telling the thruth." And with this retort courteous the impervious woman retired into her house, while I seated myself on the bucket stool against the wall, and proceeded to fill my pipe.
"We got six goats—pure Angoras," remarked the little girl, approaching me with instinctive courtesy. "We keep them for milkin'; an' Daddy shears them ivery year."
"I noticed them coming along," I replied. "They're beautiful goats. And I see you've got some horses too."
"Yis; three. We bought wan o' them chape, because he hed a sore back, fram a shearer, an' it's nat hailed up yit. Daddy rides the other wans. E-e-e! can't my Daddy ride! An' he ken grow melons, an' he ken put up shelves, an' he knows iverything!"
"Yes; your Daddy's a good man. I knew him long, long ago, when there was no you. What's your name, dear?"
"Mary."
"She's got no name," remarked the grim voice from the interior of the house. And the mild, apologetic glance of the child in my face completed a mental appraisement of Rory's family relations.
Half an hour passed pleasantly enough in this kind of conversation; then Rory came in sight at the wicket gate where I had entered. Mary forgot my existence in a moment, and raced toward him, opening a conversation at the top of her voice while he was still a quarter of a mile distant. When they met, he dismounted, and, placing her astride on the saddle, continued his way with the expression of a man whose cup of happiness is wastefully running over.
I had leisure to observe the child critically as she sat bareheaded beside Rory at the tea-table, glancing from time to time at me for the tribute of admiration due to each remark made by that nonpareil of men.
She was not only a strikingly beautiful child, but the stamp of child that expands into a beautiful woman. In spite of her half-Anglican lineage and Antipodean birth, there was something almost amusing in the strong racial index of her pure Irish face. The black hair and eye-brows were there, with eyes of indescribable blue; the full, shapely lips, and that
