"I picked some shamrock leaves this morning, and I put them in the big book to press. Can they go in the next letter to Maggie, mother?" asked the little girl, as she finished singing.
She jumped down from her seat and went to a shelf, from which she took the treasure of the family. It was the only book they owned besides their prayer-books.
It told the story of a man loved by every child of Erin,—the story of Daniel O'Connell.
Opening the leaves carefully, Norah took out a spray of tiny leaves. They looked very much like the white clover which is so common in the fields of America. It was a cluster of shamrock leaves, the emblem of Ireland.
"Yes, it shall go to Maggie without fail," said Norah's mother. "It will make her heart glad to see it. The fields behind our cabin will come to her mind, and the goat she loved so well, feeding there. Oh, but she has niver seen Patsy yet!"
"Father, please tell us the story of that great man," said Norah. "I am never tired of hearing it."
Norah pointed to the big book as she spoke. The first money Maggie had sent from America had bought it, so it was doubly precious to every one in the little home.
Daniel O'Connell! What a friend he had been to Ireland! The face of Norah's father grew brighter as he began to tell the story of the brave man who had worked so hard to help his people. But the story-teller first went back in the history of Ireland to a time long before the birth of O'Connell.
The Irish had at last been conquered by England. They had fought against her for four hundred years. It was hard now to have English rulers in the country and to have English lords take their lands away from them.
It was harder still to have these rulers say, "You must worship as we worship. If you remain Catholics, we will punish you."