ugh she does not come from
the County Down."

Neal grew angry. It did not seem fitting that this red-haired, freckled
servant, with her bold tongue and red arms, should make game of Una St.
Clair's kisses. They were sacred things in his memory.

"Now you're getting vexed," she said. "You're as cross as twa sticks. I
can see it in your eyes. Well, I've more to do than to be coaxing you."

She turned her back on him and began to sing--

"I would I were in Ballinderry,
I would I were in Aghalee,
I would I were on bonny Ram's Island,
Sitting under an ivy tree.
Ochone! Ochone!"

"Peg," said Neal, "Peg Macllrea, don't you be cross with me."

"I would I were in Ballinderry,"

she began again.

"Peg," said Neal, "I've finished my tea, and I wish you'd turn round.
Please do, please."

She turned to him at last with a broad smile on her face.

"Is that the way you wheedled the poor lassie out of the kiss? But there
now, I'll no say a word more about her if it makes you sore. But I
can't sit here crackin' all day. I've the dinner to get ready, and the
master'll be quare and angry if it's no ready against he's home."

She picked up the tray as she spoke.

"Would you like me to leave you them twa graven images?" she said.

"I'd like you to take them away," said Neal, "and then get me a book out
of the case."

"I will, surely. What sort of a book would you like? A big one or a wee
one. There's one here in a braw red cover with pictures of ships in it.
Maybe it might content you."

"Read me a few of their names," said Neal, "and I'll tell you which to
bring."

"Faith, if you wait for me to read you the names you'll wait till the
crack of doom. Nobody ever learned me readin', writin', or 'rithmetic."

"Bring me three or four," said Neal, "and I'll choose the one I like
best."

She deposited half a dozen volumes on the chair beside him and left the
room. Neal took them up one by one. There was a volume of "Voltaire,"
Tom Paine's "Rights of Man," "The Vindiciae Gallicae," by Mackintosh,
Godwin's "Political Justice," Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois," and
a volume of Burns' poetry, not long out from a Belfast printer. Neal
already knew Godwin's works and the "Esprit des Lois." They stood on his
father's bookshelves. He glanced at the pages of the others, and finally
settled down to read Burns' poetry. The Scottish dialect presents little
difficulty to a man bred among County Antrim pe