delicacy of tact and feeling. He seemed to understand the instinct for
beauty and adornment that sent her roving to her mother's trunks. He
understood her dreams and her hunger. He understood the spirit that had
led her to make the garret a sort of shrine to be swept and dusted, to be
kept apart and precious. There was another force, subtle and exacting:
the girl's burgeoning womanhood. Wistful for homage, she craved his
gallant tenderness and wanted always to be with him. His frank glance of
admiration and his boyish smile were always a tribute. So was his voice,
deep, gentle, sonorous as a sweet-toned bell. Tones of it she knew were
kept for her alone. The knowledge thrilled her. She did not know why.

By the time the old wistaria vine outside her window shook in the wind
with a glory of purple, the over-crowded days were gliding one into the
other like a rain of stars. Most of all, wakeful in the dark of her
room, she remembered the hours by the river when Kenny wove for her high,
peaked hats of rushes such as he claimed the Irish fairies wore, and told
her tales of Ireland with a trick of eloquence that made her laugh and
made her cry. Odd! unlike her uncle he understood tears too. A tear, he
said, was always trailing an Irishman's smile. His sympathetic brogue,
smooth and soft and instinct with drollery, held for her a never-ending
fascination.

And always at the end of the day there was Kenny's Gray Man of the
Twilight stealing up the river all too soon.

Joan was not the only one to whom the sparkle of the irrepressible
Irishman's wit and humor was an energizing boon. There was Hannah and
Hetty; and Hughie, too, though he stoutly denied it. Life on the Craig
farm was no longer dull.