IX. MAY-DAY ON LOUGH GARA 56 X. A BANK OF TURF 64 XI. KATHLEEN EARNS A POUND 71 XII. THE YOUNG MALONES 78 XIII. KATHLEEN'S COMPOSITION 85 XIV. THE WISHING SPRING 91 XV. GOOD NEWS FROM COUSIN BEE 99 XVI. THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 104 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Kathleen at Home _Frontispiece in Color_ "The old grandmother was spinning at the door" 2 The Hills of Donegal 21 "They are playing 'Green grow the rushes-O'" 42 Cousin Bee's Farmhouse in Tonroe 47 "A neighbor was driving his family down to the lake in a jaunting-car" 58 Cutting bricks of peat and stacking them up to dry 67 O'Connell Street, Dublin 102 The Giant's Causeway 111 KATHLEEN IN IRELAND CHAPTER I THE SHOEMAKER OF DONEGAL "Tell me the story again, Kathleen." "I can't tell it to you here, Mary Ellen," whispered her sister. "Sure, he might be under the hedge this minute and hear me talking about him. Come to the top of the hill and I'll tell you." Mary Ellen slipped her hand into Kathleen's, and the two children stole softly away from the door-stone where they had been playing. Their bare feet made no sound on the green grass, and the old grandmother, who was spinning at the door of the cottage, did not even look up as they passed. A thick fuchsia hedge bordered the plot of green grass that surrounded the cottage, shutting out the barren field behind the house. Slipping through the hedge, the little girls followed the narrow foot-path that led across the field to the top of the hill. "I'm thinkin' of a riddle Danny gave me the morn," said Kathleen, as they ran along the path. "Give it to me," said Mary Ellen eagerly, and Kathleen laughed merrily as she repeated: "From house to house it goes, A wanderer small and slight; And whether it rains or snows, It sleeps outside in the night." "I'll never guess it; tell it to me now, alanna," begged her sister. "If your blue eyes could see the little _path_ under your feet you would _see_ the answer," replied Kathleen, as she led the blind child carefully over the steep pathway to the long stone slab where they loved to play. "We'll sit here a bit," she added, and drew Mary Ellen down beside her on the stone. "Now tell me why you put the dish of stirabout under the hawthorn bush last night, and what became of it," asked the child, who could wait no longer for the story. "It was for the leprecaun," Kathleen told her. "He is the fairy shoemaker, and he sits under the hedge all day tapping away on an old shoe. He wears a scarlet cap and a green coat, and there are two rows of buttons on his coat, with seven buttons in each row. He has a fairy purse which is filled with gold, and he puts it down beside him on the grass while he works; but he is always watching it. If I could just see him once and hold his eye for a minute, I could snatch the purse of gold and run away with it." [Illustration: