"Oh, let her go ... fine musician she'll make, I'm sure," said that lady. And for two weeks Poppy went. Then Mrs. Kennedy, storming and raving, refused to let her go again. She missed her slave; so Poppy went back to the old life of weariness; but she had something new to think over. Mrs. Dale had known her mother quite well, and remembered Poppy as a baby.
"You were a sweet little thing," she said. "So beautifully kept, and the apple of your mother's eye."
This was most wonderful and shining news. Any illusions Poppy might have had about her mother had long since been scattered by such remarks from her aunt as:
"Your mother ought to be alive. She'd have skinned you for your dirtiness—your deceit, your laziness" (whatever the crime might be).
Or:
"It's a good thing your mother's lying cold in her grave, my girl—she would have had murder on her soul if she had had you to deal with."
Now, to hear that her mother had been a gentle and kind woman, not beautiful, but with wonderful Irish eyes and "a laugh like a bird's song!"
"Clever, too," said Mrs. Dale. "Though she was only a poor Irish girl and came out here with the emigrants, she had a lot of learning, and had read more books than anyone in Bloemfontein. I think the priests must have educated her."
"But why has no one ever told me before?" asked Poppy in amazement. "No one speaks of her, or of my father, to me! Why?"
Mrs. Dale shook her gentle head.