ne fact was clear. Maria Pinckney was genuine in her invitation.

"I'll go," said Phyl.

She rose up from the table as though determined then and there to start
off for America, left the room, went upstairs and knocked at Mrs.
Hennessey's door.

That lady was sitting up in bed with a stocking tied round her throat--she
was suffering from a slight attack of tonsilitis--and the Irish _Times_
spread on her knees.

"Mrs. Hennessey," said Phyl, "I have just had a letter from my cousins in
America, and they want me to go out to them."

"Want you to go to America!" said Mrs. Hennessey. "On a visit, I
suppose?"

"No, to stay there."

"To stay in America; but what on earth do they want you to do that for?
Who on earth would dream of leaving Dublin to live in America! It's
extraordinary the ideas some people get hold of. Then, of course, they
don't know, that's all that's to be said for them. It's like hearing
people talking and talking of all the fine views abroad, and you'd think
they'd never seen the Dargle or the Glen of the Downs; they don't know the
beauty of their own country or haven't eyes to see it, and they must go
raving of the Bay of Naples with Kiliney Bay a stone's throw away from
them, and talking of Paris with Dublin outside their doors, and praising
up foreign actors with never a word of the Irish Players. Dublin giving
her best to them, and they with deaf ears to her music and blind eyes to
her sons."

"But, you see, Mrs. Hennessey, the Pinckneys are my relations."

"Irish?" cried the good woman, absolutely unconscious of everything but
the vision before her. "Those that can't see their own land aren't Irish.
Mongrels is the name for them, without pride of heart or light of
understanding."

She was off.

With a far, fixed gaze and her mind in a state of internal combustion, she
seemed a thousand miles away from Phyl and her affairs, fighting the
battles of Ireland.

Phyl gathered the impression that, if she went to America Mrs. Hennessey
would grieve less over the fact that she (Phyl) was leaving Merrion
Square, than over the fact that she was leaving Dublin. She escaped,
carrying this impression with her, went upstairs, dressed, and then
started off for Mr. Hennessey's office.

It was a cold, bright day and Dublin looked almost cheerful in the
sunlight.

The lawyer looked surprised when she was shown into his private room;
then, when she had told him her business, he fumbled amongst the pape