"Why do ye ask me that?" said O'Connell.
"Because I always feel a little sharp pain right through my heart whenever ye talk about me mother. Ye see, father, I've thought all these years that I was the one ye really loved—"
"Ye're the only one I have in the wurrld, Peg."
"And ye don't love her memory betther than ye do me?"
O'Connell put both of his arms around her.
"Yer mother is with the Saints, Peg, and here are you by me side. Sure there's room in me heart for the memory of her and the love of you."
She breathed a little sigh of satisfaction and nestled onto her father's shoulder. The little fit of childish jealousy of her dead mother's place in her father's heart passed.
She wanted no one to share her father's affection with her. She gave him all of hers. She needed all of his.
When Peg was eighteen years old and they were living in Dublin, O'Connell was offered quite a good position in New York. It appealed to him. The additional money would make things easier for Peg. She was almost a woman now, and he wanted her to get the finishing touches of education that would prepare her for a position in the world if she met the man she felt she could marry. Whenever he would speak of marriage Peg would laugh scornfully:
"Who would I be of AFTHER marryin' I'd like to know? Where in the wurrld would I find a man like you?"