u will join me, mother darling, in asking Miss
O'Hara to stay, too."

"But Miss O'Hara doesn't want to join either you or your 'mother
darling,'" said Kathleen in her rudest tone. "It is Ruth I want. I have
come here for her. She must return with me at once."

"But I can't. I am ever so sorry, Miss O'Hara."

"You mean that you won't come when I have called for you?"

"I am with Miss Weldon at present."

"Be sensible, dear," said Mrs. Weldon at that moment. "You don't quite
understand our manners in this country. However attached we may be to a
person, we don't enter a strange house and snatch that person out of it.
It isn't our way; and I don't think--you will forgive me for saying
it--that your way is as nice as ours. Be persuaded, dear, and join
Cassandra and Ruth, and have a happy time."

Kathleen's face had turned crimson. She looked from Mrs. Weldon to
Cassandra, and then she looked at Ruth. Suddenly her eyes brimmed up
with tears.

"I don't think I can ever change my way," she said. "I am sorry if I am
rude and not understood. Perhaps, after all, I am mistaken, about Ruth;
perhaps she is not my real proper affinity. I am a very unhappy girl. I
wish I could go back to mother and to my dad. I shouldn't be lonely if I
were in the midst of the mountains, and if I could see the streams and
the blue sea. I don't know why Aunt Katie O'Flynn sent me to this horrid
place. I wish I was back in the old country. They don't talk as you talk
in the old country and they don't look as you look. If you put your
heart at the feet of a body in old Ireland, that body doesn't kick it
away. I will go. I don't want your tea. I don't want anything that you
have to offer me. I don't like any of you. I am sorry if you think me
rude, but I can't help myself. Good-bye."

"No, no; stay. Stay and visit with me, and tell me about the old country
and the sea and the mountains," said Mrs. Weldon.

But Kathleen shook her head fiercely, and the next moment left the room.

"Poor, strange little girl," thought the good woman. "I see she is about
to heap unhappiness on herself and others. What is to be done for her?"

"I like her," said Ruth. "She is very impulsive, but she is------"

"Oh, yes," said Cassandra, "she has a good heart, of course; but I
foresee that she is up to all sorts of mischief. She doesn't understand
our ways. Why did she leave her own country?"

Ruth was silent. She looked wistful.

"Come along, Ruthie; we will be