Now that he had a book to write, his return to America was postponed; a
postponement was to Ned an indefinite period, and he was glad he was
not returning to America till the spring, for he had found pleasant
rooms in a farm-house. He would make them his head-quarters; for it was
only by living in a farm-house he could learn the life of the people
and its real mind. And he would have written his book just as he had
planned it if he had not met Ellen Cronin.

She was the only daughter of a rich farmer in the neighbourhood. He had
heard so much about her learning and her pretty face that he was
disposed to dispute her good looks; but in spite of his landlady's
praise he had liked her pretty oval face. "Her face is pretty when you
look at it," he said to his landlady. But this admission did not
satisfy her. "Well, enthusiasm is pleasant," he thought, and he
listened to her rambling talk.

"She used to like to come to tea here, and after her tea she and my son
James, who was the same age, used to make paper boats under the
alder-trees."

And the picture of Ellen making boats under alder-trees pleased Ned's
fancy, and he encouraged the land-lady to tell him more about her. She
told him that Ellen had not taken to study till she was twelve and that
it was the priest who had set her reading books and had taught her
Latin.

Ned lay back in his chair smiling, listening to the landlady telling
him about Ellen. She had chosen her own school. She had inquired into
the matter, and had taken her father into her confidence one day by
telling him of the advantages of this school. But this part of the
story did not please Ned, and he said he did not like her a bit better
for having chosen her own school. Nor did he like her better because
her mistress had written to her father to say she had learned all that
she could learn in Ireland. He liked her for her love of Ireland and
her opposition to her father's ideas. Old Cronin thought Ireland a
miserable country and England the finest in the world, whereas Ellen
thought only of Irish things, and she had preferred the Dublin
University to Oxford or Cambridge. He was told that her university
career had been no less brilliant than her school career, and he raised
his eyebrows when the landlady said that Miss Ellen used to have her
professors staying at Mount Laurel, and that they used to talk Latin in
the garden.

But she was long ago done with the professors, and Ned asked the
landla