"It's a fine uncle he's been to me all me life. And it was a grand way he threated me mother when she was starvin'."
"He wants to do somethin' for ye now, Peg."
"I'll not go to him."
"Now listen, dear; it's little I'll have to lave ye when I'm gone," pleaded O'Connell.
"I'll not listen to any talk at all about yer goin'. Yer a great strong healthy man—that's what ye are. What are ye talkin' about? What's got into yer head about goin'?"
"The time must come, some day, Peg."
"All right, we'll know how to face it when it does. But we're not goin' out all the way to meet it," said Peg, resolutely.
"It's very few advantages I've been able to give ye, me darlin'," and O'Connell took up the argument again.
"Advantages or no advantages, what can anybody be more than be happy? Answer me that? An' sure it's happy I've been with you. Now, why should ye want to dhrive it all away from me?"
To these unanswerable reasons O'Connell would remain silent for a while, only to take up the cudgels again. He realised what it would mean to Peg to go to London to have the value of education and of gentle surroundings. He knew her heart was loyal to him: nothing strangers might teach her would ever alter that. And he felt he owed it to her to give her this chance of seeing the great world. HE would never be able to do it for her. Much as he hated the name of Kingsnorth he acknowledged the fact that he had made an offer O'Connell had no real right to refuse.