cheeks and she stamped her small foot in actual rage. "I'd like to
meet him some day," she muttered.

"I hope ye never will, Peg," said her father solemnly. "And," he
added, "don't let us ever talk of it again, me darlin'!"

And she never did. But she often thought of the incident and the
memory of that brutal message was stamped vividly on her little
brain.

The greatest excitements of her young life were going with her
father to hear him speak. She made the most extraordinary collection
of scraps of the speeches she had heard her father make for Home
Rule. While he would be speaking she would listen intently, her lips
apart, her little body tense with excitement, her little heart
beating like a trip-hammer.

When they applauded him she would laugh gleefully and clap her
little hands together: if they interrupted him she would turn
savagely upon them. She became known all over the countryside as
"O'Connell's Peg."

"Sure O'Connell's not the same man at all, at all, since he came
back with that little bit of a red-headed child," said a man to
Father Cahill one day.

"God is good, Flaherty," replied the priest. "He sent O'Connell a
baby to take him up nearer to Himself. Ye're right. He's NOT the
same man. It's the good Catholic he is again as he was as a boy. An'
it's I'm thankful for that same."