“And what thin?”
“Well—since you put it so straight—why—why, of course—I wanted to ask you more about our people, about the O’Mahonys. You seemed to be pretty well up on the thing. You see, my father died seven or eight years ago, so that I was too young to talk to him much about where he came from, and all that. And my mother, her people were from a different part of Ireland, and so, you see—”
“Ah, there’s not much to tell now,” said Kate, in a saddened tone. “They were a great family once, and now are nothing at all, wid poor me as the last of the lot.”
“I don’t call that ‘nothing at all,’ by a jugful,” protested Bernard, with conviction.
Kate permitted herself a brief cousinly smile.
“All the same, they end with me, and afther me comes in the O’Dalys.”
Lines of thought raised themselves on the young man’s forehead and ran down to the sunburnt nose.
“How do you mean?” he asked, dubiously.
“Are you—don’t mind my asking—are you going to marry one of that name?”
She shrugged her shoulders, to express repugnance at the very thought.