A Blot on the Scutcheon

by Mabel Winifred Knowles

The song broke off, snapped by another of memory's shafts.

Where had he heard that song first?

At Dublin town.

Ah! Dublin held memories too.

A gay ballroom. A girl's sweet face. A kiss, passionate and long.

Norah, Norah—smiling, merry Norah.

He had loved her, too, for a short time—all too short for Norah.

And the boy?

Well! he had not been cut out for domesticity, and after a time Norah's tears bored him far more than Norah's smiles had ever charmed him.

Yet he had felt a pang of remorse when he heard she was dead. He might even have sought out his son had not the old man, his father, adopted him. It was better for Michael to be brought up at Berrington.