e wanted to get the
chill out of my bones. Maureen will sit by the window sewing, while I
get down on to the little stool which used to be mine in my childhood
and look into the heart of the flame and imagine things there.

There is a photograph of my Uncle Luke on the chimney-piece, an artless
thing of a country photographer. He is wearing his militia uniform, and
even the country photographer had no power to destroy the bonny charm
which sat on his eyes and his lips.

Now Maureen had, whether from increasing years or from the lonely life
she led, come to have delusions at times, to mix up me with my mother or
my Aunt Eleanor, to talk of Uncle Luke as though he were yet with us or
might be expected at any moment home from college, or from a hunting
day or a fair or market, or his training with his regiment on the
Curragh of Kildare.

But on this day she was clear enough in her mind.

Uncle Luke's old setter, Dido, that was a young thing when he went away,
had followed me upstairs and lay along the rug with her head on my lap.
Now and again she pricked her ears as though she heard something or
thought she did. It was Dido who led us on to talk of Uncle Luke.
Maureen is no more tolerant of dogs about her than others of her class,
but she tolerates Dido because she belonged to Uncle Luke.

"If his Lordship had a real kindness for that old dog," she began, "he'd
poison her and put her out of her trouble."

Dido looked back over her ears at her as a dog will, knowing itself
discussed.

"I don't think Dido would call it a kindness, Maureen," said I. "Let me
see--how old is she?"

"She must be nigh on fifteen years old. I remember well the day Master
Luke brought her home. I wonder his Lordship can bear to have her about,
seeing who it was that gave her to him."

"And who was it, Maureen?" I asked.

Her old eyes narrowed themselves cunningly.

"No one could ever say, Miss Bawn, that I talked about the family."

"Very well, Maureen," I said. "But I am to hear it, all the same. Miss
Champion is going to tell me. She said so to my grandmother yesterday,
and would have done it then only that she feared to disturb Gran. I am
going to her this afternoon to talk about our trip to Dublin, and then
she will tell me."

"That is the way," said Maureen, with great bitterness. "People will
tell you not to tell things: and when you've held yourself in till
you're fit to burst after all those years they'll tell themselves. W