"Well, sure that's not your fault. Ye couldn't help it. No one should hold that against ye. We can't all be born Irish."
"I'm glad you look at it so broad-mindedly," said Jerry.
"Do ye know much about Ireland?" asked Peg.
"Very little, I'm ashamed to say," answered Jerry. "Well, it would be worth yer while to learn somethin' about it," said Peg.
"I'll make it my business to," he assured her. "It's God country, is Ireland. And it's many a tear He must have shed at the way England mismanages it. But He is very lenient and patient with the English. They're so slow to take notice of how things really are. And some day He will punish them and it will be through the Irish that punishment will be meted out to them." She had unconsciously dropped again into her father's method of oratory, climaxing the speech with all the vigour of the rising inflection. She looked at Jerry, her face aglow with enthusiasm.
"That's from another of me father's speeches. Did ye notice the way he ended it?—'through the Irish that punishment will be meted out to them!' I think 'meted out' is grand. I tell you me father has the most wondherful command of language."
She stood restlessly a moment, her hands beating each other alternately.
"I get so lonesome for him," she said.
Suddenly with a tone of definite resolve in her voice she started up the stairs, calling over her shoulder:
"I'm goin' back to him now. Good-bye!" and she ran all the way upstairs.