“Did he want you to stay with him on the farm?”
“Yes, but I’m thinking I can do better in some other line than farming,” said Danny. “I’d like to get into a shop and work my way up.”
“If you are in no hurry to go to America you might stay and have a try at working for me,” suggested his uncle. “I have a linen shop here in Kilkenny. Next year, if you do well, I’ll send you and Tara to one of the great linen mills in Belfast to learn the business.”
“I’d like nothing better,” replied Danny heartily, “and I’ll do my best to make the most of the chance.”
“There’s as good a place for you here as you will find in America,” said his uncle, “and we can’t afford to let all our lads leave their own country.”
So the next day found Danny in the linen shop with Tara, while Kathleen, at home with her cousins, was learning to know and love them all.
But it was to pretty Fiona, “Princess Feena” the children called her, with the curly hair, brown eyes, and fluttering ribbons, that Kathleen took the greatest fancy, and she followed her about everywhere, just to watch the gleams of sunshine shake out from the rippling waves that crowned her cousin’s head.
As for Fiona, having been named for an Irish princess, she talked by the hour about kings, queens, and castles, and the royal times she hoped to enjoy some day; while Kathleen listened as if she were enchanted.
It was useless for the twins, Hannah and Anna, to try to entice her away for a game. She preferred to listen while Feena told stories, or read aloud from some old book of the time when Ireland was ruled by “a king with flowing golden hair, his crimson cloak held at the breast by a magnificent jewelled brooch, his shirt interwoven with gold threads, and his girdle sparkling with precious gems.”
Columba, too, was sadly disappointed at not finding a playmate in Kathleen. He had even given way to his temper one day when, instead of going for a ride in the trap with him, she had chosen to walk along the bank of the River Nore with Feena to see the beautiful ivy-covered Kilkenny Castle.