The Daughter of a Soldier: A Colleen of South Ireland

wanted to sing their little hearts out. The trees were in full leaf, and every flower bloomed

with extra charm and extra perfume. The old Rectory, situated in the well-known county of

Cork, was in a very lonely part. On one side it was five miles away from the charming little

town of Kingsala, and on the other quite ten miles from the thriving and more mercantile

town of Bradley. The Rectory stood by itself, its thirty acres of grounds surrounding it. It

had a back avenue and a winding front avenue, but its special charm was its great fruit

garden. This was generally kept locked, for the Rector was most particular with regard to

his fruit. It had in addition a great lawn, studded over with flower-beds filled mostly with

roses. Just below this lawn was an apiary full of bees. Then there were fields, cultivated

sometimes with grass for hay, sometimes with potatoes, sometimes again with other

vegetables; but beyond the lawn and the fields were great pasture lands full of sheep, which

formed a constant source of income to the Rector, who was not too well off. His income

from his living was exactly one pound a day, but his wife, a haughty dame, with fiery blue

eyes and red hair, had large private means; therefore Templemore was always kept in a

certain kind of order. There were the necessary number of gardeners; the old-fashioned

and queer-looking house had a great many servants, who did their work in the Irish

fashion, which was slovenly and untidy enough; but nevertheless, they always managed to

have a good dinner for "Herself," as they called Mrs. O'Brien, being very much afraid, "so to

spake, of the wummen's tongue." That tongue could scathe them, and they did not want to

be scathed.

On this summer day, when the story opens, Maureen lay flat on her back and looked up, up,

up, through the tall trees to the blue sky, which peeped down through the branches at