CHAPTER II
The Misses O’Hara.
In all the neighbourhood of the Mourne Mountains there was probably neither priest, nor peasant, nor layman so generally known and respected as the Rev. Patrick O’Hara’s two maiden sisters. Miss Jane and Miss Mary they were known as generally, but among the young men and girls whom they loved, they were Aunt Jane and Aunt Mary always, and they were familiar figures at every gathering and every party for miles round! If anyone was in trouble, they went over to the Parsonage at Omeath as soon as they could; and if they could not manage this, it was practically a certainty that the two little ladies would very shortly look in upon them. The oldest inhabitants remembered them as two little girls, when their father was at the Parsonage before their brother; and later, as two very pretty, very charming young women, but why they were still at the Parsonage, and still the Misses O’Hara, was the one thing nobody did know. Certainly, they had been very much admired, and there had been some talk about Miss Mary and young Captain Quinn, of Omeath Park, but nothing had apparently come of it, for the Captain went away on active service, and came no more to Omeath. Several months after he left, both the sisters had gone abroad, and been away a year, but no one knew where they went to, and they never offered any enlightenment on the point. When they came back, however, they were very changed in many ways. Gaiety, which had been spontaneous before, seemed to have become an effort to both of them, and for some little time neither appeared to care to accept the invitations showered upon them as usual. Later on something of their old brightness came back, and they were once more the familiar figures everywhere that they had previously been. But though their joyousness came back, there was still an indefinable change and the suggestion of something hidden which none could solve, and to every one’s surprise each “would-be” suitor was sent resolutely away. Finally, it became evident that the Misses O’Hara meant to remain the Misses O’Hara to their dying day, and live at the Parsonage as long as it was possible—the dearest little pair of old maids that ever gave their fellow-creatures cause to bless the Guiding Hand, that gave some women to one home and one family, and reserved others to belong to every one about them.
“My dear,” they said to any of the myriad nieces who plied them with wondering questions why they had never married, and whether it was that they did not believe in matrimonial happiness, “there is no happiness in the world quite like that of a happy wife and mother, but it is not given to everyone to know it, and many come to a crossway in life, where they know they must mould their future without any hope of it. But for such, the Good Father has another happiness waiting, if they will take it and trust Him, and not repine because they might not choose. It is the happiness of a life filled with serving, and rich in the love of one’s fellow-creatures of every sex and age and station. Our lives are filled to overflowing with, this happiness, and we are content to believe that what is lost to a woman in this life will be made up to her an hundredfold in some other life beyond.”
“And then there is Jack!” one of them would add softly, and the other would reply with like softness, “Yes, sister, there is Jack.”
By which one can easily gather, how, when the poor little baby at the Parsonage was left motherless at ten months old, he at once became the fortunate possessor of two new mothers, who would have gone through fire and water rather than let a hair of his sunny curls be hurt.
“We must not spoil him, sister,” Jane, the elder, had said once, as they stood gazing rapturously at their new treasure.
“No, sister,” Mary had replied, “it is only unkind mothers who spoil children, and so unfit them for the rough usage of the world and rob them of many a good friend they might afterward have won.”
“That is exactly my view, sister; we will endeavour to act up to it, and yet make him as happy as the day is long.”
Nevertheless, a more spoilt boy than little Jack O’Hara it would have been difficult to find, and, if Nature had not blessed him particularly with a nature proof against spoiling, he would probably have grown up the reverse of the adored young scamp he was. But then, possibly, it was just this that caused his aunts to swerve so widely from their fixed principle, for it would have required a heart of cast-iron to withstand such a boy as he. All his naughtiness was pure love of mischief, and he was always so genuinely sorry and penitent afterward, and so forlornly unhappy when he was in disgrace, that he made every one else in the house feel miserable until he was forgiven. No sooner was he undergoing a term of punishment than Aunt Mary would ask Aunt Jane to forgive him this once, or the cook would “make so bold” as to plead with Miss Jane, or the gardener would “mention it respectfully to ’is riverence.”