rs on
his desk and produced a letter.

"This is from Pinckney," said he. "It came by the same post as yours, only
it was directed to the office. It's the same story, too. He wants you to
go over."

"I've been thinking over the whole business," said Phyl, "and I feel I
ought to go."

"Aren't you happy in Dublin?" asked he.

"M'yes," answered the other. "But, you see--at least, I'm as happy as I
suppose I'll be anywhere, only they are my people and I feel I ought to go
to them. It's very lonely to have no people of one's own. You and Mrs.
Hennessey have been very kind to me, and I shall always be grateful,
but--"

"But we aren't your own flesh and blood. You're right. Well, there it is.
We'll be sorry to lose you, but, maybe, though you haven't much experience
of the world, you've hit the nail on the head. We aren't your flesh and
blood, and though the Pinckneys aren't much more to you, still, one drop
of blood makes all the difference in the world. Then again, you're a cut
above us; we're quite simple people, but the Berknowles were always in the
Castle set and a long chalk above the Hennesseys. I was saying that to
Norah only last night when I was reading the account of the big party at
the Viceregal Lodge and the names of all the people that were there, and I
said to her, 'Phyl ought to be going to parties like that by and by when
she grows older, and we can't do much for her in that way,' and off she
goes in a temper. 'Who's the Aberdeens?' says she. 'A lot of English
without an Irish feather in their tails, and he opening the doors to
visitors in his dressing gown--Castle,' she says, 'it's little Castle
there'll be when we have a Parliament sitting in Dublin.'"

"I don't want to go to parties at the Viceregal Lodge," said Phyl,
flushing to think of what a snob she had been when only a few days back
she had criticised the Hennesseys and their set in her own mind. These
honest, straightforward good people were not snobs, whatever else they
might be, and if her desire for America had been prompted solely by the
desire to escape from the social conditions that environed her friends,
she would now have smothered it and stamped on it. But the call from
Charleston that had come across the water to her was an influence far more
potent than that. That call from the country where her mother had been
born and where her mother's people had always lived had more in it than
the voices that carried the message.

"Well," sa