dge, but it's the little FINE
things we Irish have got to learn. An' they make life seem so much
bigger an' grander by bein' considerate an' civil an' soft-spoken to
each other. We've let the brutality of all the years that have gone
before eat into us, and we have thrown off all the charm and formality
of life, and in their place adopted a rough and crude manner to each
other that does not come really from our hearts, but from the memory of
our wrongs."

Unconsciously Peg had spoken as she had heard Jerry so often speak when
he discussed the Irish. She had lowered her voice and concluded with
quiet strength and dignity. The contrast to the beginning of the speech
was electrical. O'Connell listened amazed.

"Did the same Jerry say that?"

"He did, father. An' much more. He knows Ireland well, an' loves it.
Many of his best friends are Irish--an'--"

"Wait a minnit. Have I ever been 'rough an' crude' in me manner to you,
Peg?"

"Never, father. But, faith, YOU ought to be a Lord yerself. There isn't
one o' them in England looks any betther than you do. It's in their
MANNER that they have the advantage of us."

"And where would _I_ be gettin' the manner of a Lord, when me father
died the poorest peasant in the village, an' me brought up from hand to
mouth since I was a child?"

"I'm sorry I said anythin', father. I wasn't reproachin' ye."

"I know that, Peg."

"I'm so proud of ye that yer manner manes more to me than any man o'
title in England."

He drew her gently to him.

"There's the one great danger of two people who have grown near to each
other separatin'. When they, meet again, they each think the other has
changed. They look at each other with different eyes, Peg. An' that's
what yer doin' with me. So long as I was near ye, ye didn't notice the
roughness o' me speech an' the lack o' breedin' an' the want o'
knowledge. Ye've seen and listened to others since who have all I never
had the chance to get. God knows I want YOU to have all the advantages
that the wurrld can give ye, since you an' me counthry--an' the memory
of yer mother--are all I have had in me life these twenty years past.
An' that was why I urged ye to go to England on the bounty of yer
uncle. I wanted ye to know there was another kind of a life, where the
days flowed along without a care or a sorrow. Where poverty was but a
word, an' misery had no place. An' ye've seen it, Peg. An' the whole
wurrld has changed for ye, Peg. An' from no