And we’d like to count you two, too, at Malone’s!
Never did two travellers receive a noisier or heartier greeting than the ten young Malones gave to Danny and Kathleen on the night of their arrival from Tonroe. From twenty-four-year-old Tara to three-year-old Victoria there was nothing but bright faces, merry voices, and outstretched hands.
No one could be shy or homesick in the midst of so much jollity, and in no time at all Kathleen was laughing and talking as gaily as if she had lived with “the Malones in old Kilkenny” all her life.
When, at last, she fell asleep for the night, two of the happy family stood out most clearly in her memory. One was Connemara, who had slipped her motherly arm around the little girl’s tired shoulders to draw her away from the hubbub and put her to bed. The other was Columba, who followed her to the foot of the stairs to say, “I’ll tell you to-morrow why they call me ‘the gentle dove.’ It’s because I have such an awful temper. And up at St. Kieran’s College they call Deena ‘Save-a-Shilling Malone,’ because he advertises in the Weekly Budget that the students can save a shilling on their books if they buy them of him,” he added, shouting the last words as Connemara led Kathleen down the long hall to her own little bedroom.
As she lay in her bed, thinking over all the happy events of the day, she heard the thirteen-year-old twins, Hannah and Anna, shouting with laughter over a joke of Deena’s. Then the two older twins began a duet on the piano, and just as she was trying to think of the tune they were playing she shut her eyes and was lost in the land of Nod.
In the meantime good Uncle Tom Malone had taken Danny into his library to talk with the lad about his plans. It was a simple story that Danny had to tell. He was going at once to Queenstown to take the steamer there for America.
“Do you know any one over there?” asked his uncle, looking at him with shrewd eyes.
“No,” replied Danny, “but I know how to work, and that’s something.”
“What did Patrick say to it?” asked Uncle Tom.
“He said he had no fear but that I would do well,” said Danny modestly, “but he wanted me to stay in Ireland. He said I could do well here, too.”