"I remember this place very well—Dublin, I mean. I was here long ago, when I was little."
"Yes? I suppose one's memory does go back very far," I observed thoughtfully. "But can you recall, for instance, where you lived?"
She shook her head.
"It was in a big house," she answered, "with a good many stairs in it and a lot of people. Some of them may have been servants. And I remember a lady in a yellow dress. Perhaps she was my mother."
She stopped abruptly, as though the subject were painful; then resumed:
"Since I came to this place, I remember a good many things. The lady in the yellow dress was standing one evening in a great big room, and she had a flower in her hair. Oh, she was very beautiful! A gentleman came in. He was tall and dark."
"With very bright eyes?" I put in eagerly.
"Yes, they were bright," she assented; "at least I think so. I remember the lady better than the gentleman. They were talking, and I couldn't understand much of what they said; but I am almost sure the gentleman was angry, for his face got very red. Then the lady laughed, and the gentleman went away quickly and shut the door hard. The lady laughed again and said to me: 'I hope you haven't your father's temper, child. Poor Roderick! he does flare up so quick. He is just raving now because I don't want to go to some outlandish place in the hills.'"
The child stopped, but the little drama of the past which she had evoked told me a great deal. Niall had blamed Roderick for not bringing his wife to the castle; but the wife—a somewhat hard and cold beauty, as old Granny Meehan had once described her—would not come. Roderick had not cared to throw the blame upon her, and so had quarrelled with his kinsman. Winifred seemed to ponder upon what she had just told me.