ich was that her funeral was to take
place on a Sunday, so that the farm hands should not get a day off;
and then, with some wonder at the new masterful spirit in his son, he
gave himself up to an easy life.

This independence in James Rooney was not altogether the result of his
Fenianism. As a matter of fact, he had fallen in love, with the
overwhelming passion of a lad who had hitherto lived with every
generous emotion repressed. The girl was a gay, sweet, yet impassioned
creature who was the light of her own home. At that home James Rooney
had first realised what a paradise home may be made; and coming from
his own gloomy and horrid surroundings, the sunshine of hers had
almost blinded him. In that white house among the wheatfields love
reigned. And not only love, but charity, hospitality, patriotism, and
religion. There was never a rough word heard there; even the
household creatures, the canary in the south window, the comfortable
cats, the friendly dogs, partook of the general sunniness.

They were rebels of the hottest type. The one son had been out with
the Fenians and was now in America. His exile was a bitter yet proud
grief to his father and mother; but their enthusiasm was whetted
rather than damped by the downfall of the attempted rebellion. At
night, when the curtains were drawn and the door barred against all
fear of 'the peelers,' the papers that had the reports of the Dublin
trials were passed from hand to hand, or read aloud amid intense
silence, accompanied by the flushing cheek, the clenching hand, often
the sob, that told of the passionate feeling of the hearers.

Sometimes Ellen would sing to them, but not the little gay songs she
trilled so delightfully, now when their friends were in prison or the
dock. Mournful, impassioned songs were hers, sung in a rich voice,
trembling with emotion, or again a stave of battle and revenge, which
set hearts beating and blood racing in the veins of the listeners. At
such moments Ellen, with her velvety golden-brown eyes, and the bronze
of her hair, was like the poet's 'Cluster of Nuts.'

I've heard the songs by Liffey's wave
That maidens sung.
They sang their land, the Saxon's slave,
In Saxon tongue.
Oh, bring me here that Gaelic dear
Which cursed the Saxon foe.
When thou didst charm my raptured ear
_Mo craoibhin cno!_

Among those admitted freely to that loving circle, James Rooney was
one held in affecti