“Indeed I will not do any such thing. It’s just as much as I’ll do is to read it out--‘a very long letter, and I hope and trust it will serve for a very long time, and save me, besides, from the annoyance of your friend and secretary, Mr. O’Rorke.’ Listen to this, Peter Malone,--‘from your secretary, Mr. O’Rorke, who, I suppose, having no treason to occupy him, is good enough to bestow his leisure upon me.’ Did you ever hear more impudence than that in all your born days? Did you believe she’d be bowld enough to insult the man that condescended to serve her?” “She’s young, she’s young, Tim! Would you have her as wise as you and me? The crayture!” “I’d have her with a civil tongue in her head. I’d have her respect and regard and rev’rahce her superiors--and I’m one of them!” “Go on; read more,” muttered the old man. “It’s not so easy, with a throat on fire, and a tongue swelled with passion. I tell you, Peter Malone, I know that girl well, and what’s more, she never deceived me! It’s like yesterday to me, the day she stood up here to my own face and said, ‘I wish I never set foot in your house, Tim O’Rorke.’ Yes, there’s the very words she used.” “Wasn’t she a child, a poor little child?” said Malone, in a humble, almost supplicating voice. “She was a child in years, but she had the daring of a woman, that no man would ever frighten.” “Read on, avick, read on, and God bless you,” said the other, wiping away the big drops that stood on his brow. O’Rorke read on: “‘I know, grandfather, it is very natural you should like to hear of me----’” A deep sigh and low muttered prayer broke here from the old man. “‘--to hear of me: but when once assured that I was well and happy, I hoped and believed you would cease to make such inquiries as fill O’R.’s letters----’” “What does she mean?” broke in Malone. “Listen, and maybe you’ll hear;” and he read: “‘--for it cannot possibly be a matter of interest to you to hear that I read books you never saw, speak with people you never met, and talk of things, places, and persons that are all just as strange to you as if you were walking on a different earth from this.’” “Read that again.” “I will not. ‘Tis as much as I can to say it once. Listen: “‘You ask, Am I happy? and I answer, If I am not, is it in your power to make me so? You want to know, Do I like the life I lead? and I ask you, If it should be that I did not like it, do you think I’d like to go back to rags, misery, and starvation? Do you believe that I can forget the cold, cutting wind, and the rain, and the snow-drift of Strathmore, or that I don’t remember the long days I shivered on the cliffs of Kilmacreenon? They all come back to me, grandfather, in my dreams, and many a morning I awake, sobbing over miseries, that, no matter what may be my fortune, have left a dark spot on my heart for life!’” “The darlin’ jewel! I hope not,” muttered Malone, as his lips trembled with emotion. “Read on, O’Rorke.”