He remembered Matthew Hamilton. "Is he ill?" he said.
"Aye. He's been sick this while past, an' now he's worse, an' my aunt Kate asked me to come an' stop with them to help them in the house. He's not near himself at all. You'd think a pity of him if you seen the way he's failed next to nothin'.... Is it hard to learn Irish?"
"You'd better come an' try for yourself," he replied, and then he led her up to Marsh and told him that a new pupil had come to join the class. There was some awkwardness about names.... "Och, I never told you my name," she said, laughing as she spoke. "Sheila Morgan!" she continued. "I live in County Down, but I'm stayin' with my uncle Matthew," she explained to Marsh.
"Do you know any Gaelic at all?" Marsh asked.
"No," she replied. "I never learned it. Are you goin' to have any dancin' classes?"
Henry insisted that they ought to have had dancing classes as well as a hurley team. "The hurley's all right for the boys," he said, "but we've nothing for the girls...."
"But you'd want boys at the dancin' as well," Sheila interrupted. "I can't bear dancin' with girls!"
"No, of course not," said Henry.
Marsh considered. "Who's to teach the dancing?" he asked, adding, "I can't!"
"I'd be willin' to do that," Sheila said. "Mebbe you'd join the class yourself, Mr. Marsh?"