"Did your aunt send for you?"
"No--me uncle."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, indade; me Uncle Nat."
"NAT?"
"Nathaniel Kingsnorth--rest his soul."
"Nathaniel Kingsnorth!" cried Jerry in amazement
Peg nodded.
"Sleepin' in his grave, poor man."
"Why, then you're Miss Margaret O'Connell?"
"I am. How did ye know THAT?"
"I was with your uncle when he died."
"WERE ye?"
"He told me all about you."
"Did he? Well, I wish the poor man 'ud ha' lived. An' I wish he'd a'
thought o' us sooner. He with all his money an' me father with none,
an' me his sister's only child."
"What does your father do?" Peg took a deep breath and answered
eagerly. She was on the one subject about which she could talk
freely--all she needed was a good listener. This strange man, unlike
her aunt, seemed to be the very person to talk to on the one really
vital subject to Peg. She said breathlessly:
"Sure me father can do anythin' at all--except make money. An' when
he does MAKE it he can't kape it. He doesn't like it enough. Nayther
do I. We've never had very much to like, but we've seen others
around us with plent an' faith we've been the happiest--that we
have."
She only stopped to take breath before on she went again:
"There have been times when we've been most starvin', but me father
never lost his pluck or his spirits.
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