if the straight collar of his coat were a bad fit, and Henry, the
youngest boy, nodded drowsily from time to time.

"There, my lads and lasses!" said Henry Donnelly, as he closed the
book, "now we're plain farmers at last,--and the plainer the
better, since it must be. There's only one thing wanting--"

He paused; and Sylvia, looking up with a bright, arch
determination, answered: "It's too late now, father,--they have
seen me as one of the world's people, as I meant they should. When
it is once settled as something not to be helped, it will give us
no trouble."

"Faith, Sylvia!" exclaimed De Courcy, "I almost wish I had kept you
company."

"Don't be impatient, my boy," said the mother, gently. "Think of
the vexations we have had, and what a rest this life will be!"

"Think, also," the father added, "that I have the heaviest work to
do, and that thou'lt reap the most of what may come of it. Don't
carry the old life to a land where it's out of place. We must be
what we seem to be, every one of us!"

"So we will!" said Sylvia, rising from her seat,--" I, as well as
the rest. It was what I said in the beginning, you--no, THEE
knows, father. Somebody must be interpreter when the time comes;
somebody must remember while the rest of you are forgetting. Oh,
I shall be talked about, and set upon, and called hard names;
it won't be so easy. Stay where you are, De Courcy; that coat will