things for others."

"Oh!" she said quickly: "I like doin' them NOW for others." She looked
up at him a moment, then down at a book and finished under, her breath:
"When I LIKE the OTHERS."

He looked at her intently a moment and was just going to speak when she
broke in quickly:

"What's the use of learnin' the heights of mountains whose names I
can't pronounce and I'm never goin' to climb? And I'm very much
surprised at me aunt allowin' me to read about the doin's of a lot of
dead kings who did things we ought to thry and forget."

"They made history," said Jerry. "Well, they ought to have been ashamed
of themselves. I don't care how high Mont Blanc is nor when William the
Conqueror landed in England."

"Oh, nonsense!" reasoned Jerry--

"I tell ye I HATE English history. It makes all me Irish blood boil."
Suddenly she burst into a reproduction of the far-off father, suiting
action to word and climaxing at the end, as she had so often heard him
finish:

"'What IS England? What is it, I say. I'll tell ye! A mane little bit
of counthry thramplin' down a fine race like OURS!' That's what me
father sez, and that's the way he sez it. An' when he brings his fist
down like that--" and she showed Jerry exactly how her father did
it--"when he brings his fist down like THAT, it doesn't matther how
many people are listenin' to him, there isn't one dares to conthradict
him. Me father feels very strongly about English History. An' I don't
want to learn it."

"Is it fair to your aunt?" asked Jerry.

Peg grew sullen and gloomy. She liked to be praised, but all she ever
got in that house was blame. And now he was following the way of the
others. It was hard. No one understood her.

"Is it fair to your aunt?" he repeated.

"No. I don't suppose it is."

"Is it fair to yourself?"

"That's right--scold me, lecture me! You sound just like me aunt, ye
do."

"But you'll be at such a disadvantage by-and-by with other young ladies
without half your intelligence just because they know things you refuse
to learn. Then you'll be ashamed."

She looked at him pleadingly. "Are YOU ashamed of me? Because I'm
ignorant? Are ye?"

"Not a bit," replied Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age.
I used to scamp at school and shirk at college until I found myself so
far behind fellows I despised that _I_ was ashamed. Then I went after
them tooth and nail until I caught them up and passed them."

"Did ye?" cried Peg eagerly.