The Story of Bawn

ark, and by Daly's Wood, which is a little wood, barely more than a coppice; the entrance to it faces a gate in our park

he splashing of falling water and the smell of cream and warm milk, and the fresh-

days when there were such drifts of flowers and the wood was full of bluebel

fragrant than the wood in

pringing variety with slender, pale trunks, but high over

t goldenness. Below the trees was only undergrowth and the grass sown thickly with flowers. The path went so straight through it that as

ng away with the rest, but she had so much to do of

f I could have gone to the Creamery at Araglin without their knowing that I was Bawn Deve

my presence, except for giving me a shy glance now and again. They were most polite and gentle with me, and woul

and sometimes it was of their fortunes, which were being built up by tiny sums out of much poverty, so that their milk and roses, their bright eyes and satin heads might be gilt for thei

Creamery, as sometimes happened. I was washing the butter which lay befo

th my work. There was a good deal of whispering and laughing among them, and I felt with

fting my eyes I found the eyes of one of the visitors fixed upon me with so rude and

shion, and my grandfather's knee-breeches and frilled shirt were very smart in the Forties. The young man had red

ted myself to what I was doing, painfully conscious all the time of the colour in my cheeks which must make me conspicu

't you see how you are ma

o, but it was some time bef

isitors brought into the neighbourhood by the li

xed on me, and there was something odd about her look; so much so that later in the day, as I was putting

ow and again to-day as though you

d stammered something about not havi

nfusion; "a cat may look at a king, you kn

to be the Queen. Sure that's why poor Master Richard stared at you, not m

er Ri

ith some of the quality ladies they have stopping

r, more exclusive gentry turn our backs. He had been wild in his boyhood, and had quarr

eyes under their black lashes. Why was the child so much con

out our quiet lanes and roads, where hitherto there had been nothing to fear. I wished he had stayed in America; and on one subject I made up my mind. Th

s had a Dublin season every year and had been presented a

icular about one's visiting-list so as to exclude the newly rich people, one would have to mark off half Park Lane and that wonderful district which she would have us believe lay all about i

dear Lady St. Leger," she said to my grandmother once. "Arthu

ds and her dogs and her reading and music, and now with the Creamery. So should I be if Lord St. Leger did not claim so much of my attention

daragh

ried. He simply does not think of me. An illuminated manuscript is more to him than I am; and he would rather have a black-letter book than my

Her moods changed from one minute t

had spoken of the illuminated manuscript I had a sudden vision of her with he

er that it was a wonder Sir Arthur permitted it, but they would be silent when they saw me. Yet my grandmother loved Lady Ardaragh, and before my pr

eet the Dawsons in Lady Ardaragh's drawing-room, and I l

o meet him otherwise, and