t
episode should be locked forever in Peg's heart.

Jerry she touched on lightly.

O'Connell asked her many questions about him, remembering the tone of
her later letters. And all the time he never took his eyes from her
face, and he marked how it shone with a warm glow of pleasure when
Jerry's name occurred, and how the gleam died away and settled into one
of sadness when she spoke of her discovery that he had a title.

"They're queer people, the English, Peg."

"They are, father."

"They're cool an' cunnin' an' crafty, me darlin'."

"Some o' them are fine an' honourable an' clever too, father."

"Was this fellow that called himself 'Jerry'--an' all the while was a
Lord--that same?"

"Ivery bit of it, father."

"And he trated ye dacent-like?"

"Sure, I might have been a LADY, the way he behaved to me."

"Did he iver smile at ye?"

"Many's the time."

"Do ye remember the proverb I taught ye as a child?"

"Which wun, father? I know a hundred, so I do."

"'Beware the head of a bull, the heels of a horse, of the smile of an
Englishman!'"

He paused and looked at her keenly.

"Do you remember that, Peg?"

"I do. There are Englishmen AND Englishmen. There are PLENTY o' bad
Irish, and by the same token there are SOME good Englishmen. An' he is
wun o' them."

"Why didn't he tell ye he was a Lord?"

"He didn't think it necessary. Over there they let ye gather from their
manner what they are. They don't think it necessary to be tellin'
everyone."

"It's the strange ones they are, Peg, to be rulin' us."

"Some day, father, they'll go over to Ireland and learn what we're
really like, and then they'll change everything. Jerry said that."

"They've begun to already. Sure, there's a man named Plunkett has done
more in a few years than all the governments have accomplished in all
the years they've been blunderin' along tryin' to thrample on us. An'
sure, Plunkett has a title, too!"

"I know, father. Jerry knows him and often spoke of him."

"Did he, now?"

"He did. He said that so long as the English government 'ud listen to
kindly, honourable men like Plunkett, there was hope of makin' Ireland
a happy, contented people, an' Jerry said--"

"It seems Misther Jerry must have said a good deal to yez."

"Oh, he did. Sure, it was HE started me learnin' things, an' I am goin'
on learnin' now, father. Let us both learn."

"What?" cried the astonished father.

"O' coorse, I know ye have a lot o' knowle