proud--and so is all the countryside: and we think you should just go quietly to your own, and get the education, and the airs, as is your _due_.” “But I’d ever so much rather stay here!” she protested with tears. “But you can’t, me dear--ye cannot be fish and fowl at the wan time. Sure, ye haven’t a soul over here belonging to yer; and it makes people unaisy in themselves, to be sitting talking to ye, cheek by jowl, as Mary Foley, knowing as ’tis standing up and dropping curtseys to her ladyship as they should be half the time. Sometimes I declare when I think of the liberties I’ve took wid ye as a young girl, I break out into a cold sweat, saving yer presence.” “Then I must go,” she cried. “And none of ye want me!” and she burst into sobs. “Oh, I’d never have believed it of ye!” “If ’twas only Mary ye wor, we all want ye; and the young boys, especially Tom Grady, and poor Dan that’s heart-broke, and Patsie Maguire, that’s killing himself with bad whisky for your sake.” “Tom! Dan!” repeated the girl; and her face grew scarlet. “Yes,--see now, the very names brings all the lady’s blood in yer body, to yer face! ’Tis her ladyship coming out, and proud and haughty, as is fit for an earl’s daughter.” “An earl’s daughter!” echoed Mary. “It’s all like a dream. I was better as I was before, a thousand times!” “So we would have ye, my dear; but ye must make up yer mind to the other lot in life. Faix, and it will come aisy. The ould wan above” (she meant Miss Usher) “know’s what’s what, and will put ye in training. I’d be entirely said and led by her if I was you. You look a lady when ye have the hat on, and ye will _be_ a lady yit!”