When they reached home Peg busied herself about her father, trying to make him comfortable, furtively watching him all the while. When she had put him in an easy chair, and brought him his slippers, and built up the fire, she sat down on a little stool by his side. After a long silence she stroked the back of his hand and then gave him a little tug. He looked down at her.
"What is it, Peg?"
"Was my mother very beautiful, father?"
"The most beautiful woman that ever lived in all the wurrld, Peg."
"She looks beautiful in the picture ye have of her."
From the inside pocket of his coat he drew out a little beautifully-painted miniature. The frame had long since been worn and frayed. O'Connell looked at the face and his eyes shone:
"The man that painted it couldn't put the soul of her into it. That he couldn't. Not the soul of her."
"Am I like her, at all, father?" asked Peg wistfully.
"Sometimes ye are, dear: very like."
After a little pause Peg said: