quietly and hung in suspense on his answer:

"Do ye love me as much as ye loved her, father?"

"It's different, Peg--quite, quite different."

"Why is it?" She waited He did not answer.

"Sure, love is love whether ye feel it for a woman or a child," she
persisted.

O'Connell remained silent.

"Did ye love her betther than ye love me, father?"

Her soul was in her great blue eyes as she waited excitedly for the
answer to that, to her, momentous question.

"Why do ye ask me that?" said O'Connell.

"Because I always feel a little sharp pain right through my heart
whenever ye talk about me mother. Ye see, father, I've thought all
these years that I was the one ye really loved--"

"Ye're the only one I have in the wurrld, Peg."

"And ye don't love her memory betther than ye do me?"

O'Connell put both of his arms around her.

"Yer mother is with the Saints, Peg, and here are you by me side. Sure
there's room in me heart for the memory of her and the love of you."

She breathed a little sigh of satisfaction and nestled onto her
father's shoulder. The little fit of childish jealousy of her dead
mother's place in her father's heart passed.

She wanted no one to share her father's affection with her. She gave
him all of hers. She needed all of his.

When Peg was eighteen years old and they were living in Dublin,
O'Connell was offered quite a good position in New York. It appealed to
him. The additional money would make things easier for Peg. She was
almost a woman now, and he wanted her to get the finishing touches of
education that would prepare her for a position in the world if she met
the man she felt she could marry. Whenever he would speak of marriage
Peg would laugh scornfully:

"Who would I be of AFTHER marryin' I'd like to know? Where in the
wurrld would I find a man like you?"

And no coaxing would make her carry on the discussion or consider its
possibility.

It still harassed him to think he had so little to leave her if
anything happened to him. The offer to go to America seemed
providential. Her mother was buried there. He would take Peg to her
grave.

Peg grew very thoughtful at the idea of leaving Ireland. All her little
likes and dislikes--her impulsive affections and hot hatreds were all
bound up in that country. She dreaded the prospect of meeting a number
of new people.

Still it was for her father's good, so she turned a brave face to it
and said:

"Sure it is the finest thing