ople accordingly?"

"Yes," he replied, "and I don't know but what it is only right. We all
go to the market together, trade our goods together, rub elbows
together, clear the land together, fight together. Why shouldn't we live
together in peace? Intolerance and bigotry are dead and buried. We have
laid the foundations of the greatest country in the world."

"Thank God for that!" breathed Mrs. Allison.

"We are respected above all calculation," Mr. Allison continued. "Our
Loyalty now is unquestioned."

"We may thank God for that, too."

"And Captain Meagher!" added Marjorie.

Her eyes beamed.

"Yes, you are right, girl," said her father. "We can thank Captain
Meagher. The frustration and the exposure of that plot has increased our
reputation an hundredfold. Heretofore, the Catholic population had been
regarded as an insignificant element, but when the ambitions of the
enemy to secure their cooperation were discovered, the value of the
Catholics to the country suddenly rose."

"Our unity must have created a lasting impression," Marjorie remarked.

"Not alone our unity, but our loyalty as well. The government has
learned that we have been ever true to the land of our birth, ever loyal
to the country of our adoption. It has thoughtfully considered the value
of our sacrifices, and has carefully estimated our contribution to the
cause of freedom. When the charter of liberty assumes a more definite
form our rights will specifically be determined. Of that I am reasonably
certain. The enemy failed to allure us from our country in its time of
need; our country will not abandon us in our time of need."

"Stephen did it," announced Marjorie.

"Stephen helped to do it," replied her father.

III

That same evening, during a stolen moment while her mother was busied
with the turning of the buckwheat cakes, Marjorie crept to her father's
knee and folded her arms over it.

"Daddy!" she looked up at him from her seated posture on the floor.
"What would you say to a very eligible young man who had told you that
he was very fond of you?"

"What would I say?" asked the father in surprise.

"Yes. What would you?"

"I would not say anything. I would have him examined."

"No, Daddy. This is serious," and she pushed his knee from her as she
spoke.

"I am serious. If a man told me that he was very fond of me, I would
question his sanity."

She laughed.

"You know what I mean. I mean if you were a girl and----"

"