k at that now! but it's a gooddess she is--the livin'
Jaynus of warr, standin' there like a statoo, wid her alybaster fut put
forward."

In her pride and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at thus
appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as impossible to her
nature as it would have been to a queen or the goddess of his simile.
His presence and his compliment alike passed her calm modesty
unchallenged. The wretched scamp recognized the fact and felt its
power, and it was with a superstitious reverence asserting itself
through his native extravagance that he raised his grimy hand to his
cap in military salute and became respectfully rigid.

"Then the sodgers were huntin' YOU?" she said thoughtfully, lowering
her weapon.

"Thrue for you, Miss--they worr, and it's meself that was lyin' flat in
the ditch wid me faytures makin' an illigant cast in the mud--more
betoken, as ye see even now--and the sarjint and his daytail thrampin'
round me. It was thin that the mortial cold sthruck thro' me mouth,
and made me wake for the whiskey that would resthore me."

"What did you desert fer?"

"Ah, list to that now! Fwhat did I desart fer? Shure ev there was the
ghost of an inemy round, it's meself that would be in the front now!
But it was the letthers from me ould mother, Miss, that is sthruck wid
a mortial illness--long life to her!--in County Clare, and me sisthers
in Ninth Avenue in New York, fornint the daypo, that is brekken their
harruts over me listin' in the Fourth Infanthry to do duty in a haythen
wilderness. Av it was the cavalry--and it's me own father that was in
the Innishkillen Dthragoons, Miss--oi wouldn't moind. Wid a horse
betune me legs, it's on parade oi'd be now, Miss, and not wandhering
over the bare flure of the Marsh, stharved wid the cold, the thirst,
and hunger, wid the mud and the moire thick on me; facin' an illigant
young leddy as is the ekal ov a Fayld Marshal's darter--not to sphake
ov Kernal Preston's--ez couldn't hold a candle to her."

Brought up on the Spanish frontier, Maggie Culpepper was one of the few
American girls who was not familiar with the Irish race. The rare
smile that momentarily lit up her petulant mouth seemed to justify the
intruder's praise. But it passed quickly, and she returned dryly:

"That means you want more drink, suthin' to eat, and clothes. Suppose
my brother comes back and ketches you here?"

"Shure, Miss, he's just now hunten me, along