contrast with her rapid utterances and intensely
genial manner.

Dinner was announced, and the three went into the great dining-room.
Miss O'Flynn ordered a small table, and they sat down together. Ruth
felt unhappy; she keenly desired to go home again. She was more and more
certain that she had done wrong to listen to Kathleen's persuasions. But
Kathleen was enjoying herself to the utmost. She was an Irish girl
again, sitting close to one of her very own. She forgot the dull school
and the dreadfully dreary house where she now lived; she absolutely
forgot that such a person as Miss Ravenscroft existed; she ceased almost
to remember the Society of the Wild Irish Girls. Was she not Kathleen
O'Hara, the only daughter of the House of O'Hara, the heiress of her
beloved father's old castle? For some day she would be mistress of
Carrigrohane Castle; some day she would be a great lady on her own
account. Now Kathleen's ideas of what a great lady should be were in
themselves very sensible and noble. A great lady should do her utmost to
make others happy. She should dispense _largesse_ in the true sense of
the word. She should make as many people as possible happy. Her
retainers should feel certain that they dwelt in her heart. She should
love the soil of her native land with a passion which nothing could
undermine or weaken. The sons of the soil should be her brothers, her
kinsmen; the daughters of the soil should be her sisters in the best
sense of the word. But not only should the great lady of Carrigrohane
love her Irish friends, but men and women, both youths and children, but
she should love others who needed her help. There never was a more
affectionate, more generous-hearted girl than Kathleen; but of
self-control she had little or no knowledge, and those who crossed her
will had yet to find that Kathleen would not obey, for she was fearless,
defiant, resolute--in short, a rebel born and bred.

Ruth sat silent, perplexed, and anxious in the midst of the gay feast.
Kathleen and Aunt Katie O'Flynn laughed and almost shouted in their
mirth. Occasionally people turned to glance at the trio--the grave,
refined, extremely pretty, but shabbily dressed girl; the radiant
child, and the vivacious little lady who might be her mother but who
scarcely looked as if she was. It was a curious party for such a room
and for such surroundings.

"I think--" said Ruth suddenly. "Forgive me, Kathleen, but I think we
ought to be looking ou