and they had won their way up from
working at day's wages to being the owners of a snug farm, which was
well stocked and thriftily kept. They spoke their native tongue to
each other when in the secret recesses of their home, and talked with
their children and the neighbors in a brogue so deeply accented that it
would be useless for them ever to claim to be "Scotch-Irish," had they
wished to make such pretensions--which they did not.

Indeed, these people would have been called "very Irish" by the average
observer. The old gentleman had red hair and only allowed his beard to
grow about his neck, under his chin; wore a strap around his wrist, and
smoked a short clay pipe. His wife was stout and somewhat red-faced,
and in summer a stray caller would be likely to find her at work in
petticoat and short gown, her rather large feet and ankles innocent of
shoes or stockings. But she was a good housekeeper, for all of these
things. No better butter than hers ever came to market, and her heart
was warm and true, even if it did beat under a rather full form and
beneath a coarsely woven garment. She had a cheery voice and a
pleasant disposition, loved her husband devotedly, was proud of her
family, both on account of its numbers and the health, brightness and
good looks of her progeny; and her good deeds toward her neighbors,
together with her general thrift and good nature, made her a great
favorite in all the country-side.

Such was the family from which this young school miss was sprung.

The girl was just eighteen when she went to her new work. She had
received most of her education in a similar school, in a neighboring
district, where she had always led her classes, but had spent two
winters in a State Normal School. She was a trim body, compactly
built, had black hair and eyes, and a fresh, rosy complexion that is so
characteristic of her class. She could ride a fractious horse, milk,
sew, knit and cook, and had followed the plow more than one day; while
during harvest and corn-husking she had many a time "made a hand."
From this cause she was strong and well knit in all her frame, a
perfect picture of young womanly health and rustic beauty. She had a
soft, sweet voice and spoke without the slightest trace of a brogue, so
surely does a single generation Americanize such people, and was very
modest and retiring in her manners. Like her parents, she was a devout
Catholic.

It was hardly seven o'clock on an April