in the history of the O'Haras, and famed in her
day for a caustic tongue and a venomed pen. Dad and
Mother--what a pair of children they had been! The very
dissimilarity of their natures had been a bond between
them. Dad, light-hearted, whimsical, care-free,
improvident; Mother, gravely sweet, anxious-browed,
trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husband
who, descendant of a long and royal line of spendthrift
ancestors, would have none of it.

It was Dad who had insisted that they name me Dawn.
Dawn O'Hara! His sense of humor must have been sleeping.
"You were such a rosy, pinky, soft baby thing," Mother
had once told me, "that you looked just like the first
flush of light at sunrise. That is why your father
insisted on calling you Dawn."

Poor Dad! How could he know that at twenty-eight I
would be a yellow wreck of a newspaper reporter--with a
wrinkle between my eyes. If he could see me now he would
say:

"Sure, you look like the dawn yet, me girl but a
Pittsburgh dawn."

At that, Mother, if she were here, would pat my check
where the hollow place is, and murmur: "Never mind,
Dawnie dearie, Mother thinks you are beautiful just the
same." Of such blessed stuff are mothers made.