"All my life people have told me that I'm wayward. I used to be called Wayward Winifred. Perhaps it's from living so much on the hills; for you know they change often. Sometimes they're beautiful, with the sun shining like gold on their heads; and again they're dark and threatening."
"Like Niall," I added.
"Don't say anything against Niall—O poor, poor Niall!" she interrupted, almost vehemently.
"Well, that is not exactly against him. But he is rather variable," I declared. "But now you are in a place where everything is the same day after day."
"I found that hard at first," Winifred said—"very hard; but now I don't mind so much. And I suppose if I stay long enough, I shall come to be always the same too."
Inwardly I doubted if such a result were possible, but I did not tell her that. I asked her to show me what was in her desk, and she began to take out, one by one, pencils, pens, colored crayons, exercise books, a slate, a pile of lesson books. She had also her beads and her prayer-book in there. The latter contained some very pretty lace pictures, given her by her teachers as rewards of merit, on her birthday or some other festal occasion. One of the pictures, however, she took from between the leaves of the book and handed it to me.
"Do you remember the day Father Owen gave me that?" she asked.
"Was that the one he told you to get out of his breviary?" I inquired.
"Yes," answered Winifred; "and it was on the day that you told me you were going to bring me to America."