He sighed and turned away, and I remembered how he had spoken before of someone who had taken his angry words seriously and had left him. I felt very sorry for the General, and very indignant against that unknown person, whom I only wished I had there to give a bit of my mind to. "Why don't you have your sister to live with you, General?" I asked, for he had told me he had a sister living in London. "What, Lucy!" he cried. "Oh, we'd be flint and steel! The same house wouldn't hold the two of us for long, though we're really attached to each other. Wait till you've seen Lucy, and you'll understand what a preposterous suggestion you've made, young lady." I had told Aline in my letters about General MacNeill, and how I was enjoying myself arranging his books, and by return had came a perfect tornado of messages from Lady O'Brien to her old friend, and a letter from Aline saying how glad she was I had found such a solace in my loneliness as my visits to Rose Hill. I really was not sorry now that I had missed Kilkee. I felt sure I should not have enjoyed it half so much as I was enjoying my life at home. One afternoon the General walked home with me, and made the acquaintance of the twins--whom at first his aspect nearly put to flight--and the two boys. He became great friends with them. The boys were quick to recognize in him the boyishness that in a sense placed them on a level, while there were all his achievements, which they had learned--Heaven knows how--to give the friendship that romantic tinge of hero-worship which just made it perfect. The meeting resulted in a visit to Rose Hill, which was the first of many. By this time the house was getting into order, and the General was, as he would have said, off duty; and as for me, they never disturbed me. I might slip away after tea, and leave the party on the lawn, following those diagrams of the General's in which he showed how a battle was fought. I have laughed to look back and see the stiff old veteran and the boys all down on their knees making a battlefield in the gravel of the path, while the little girls peered between them, scarcely less fascinated. Nor was the General always the _raconteur_. He was ready to listen with kindling eyes to the story of the big trout caught below the Lacken Falls last May, or that wonderful adventure when the boys had climbed to the eagle's eyrie, happily during the bird's absence, and had discovered a perfect charnel-house. It was a feat never repeated, for Aline had been so frightened about it, and so stern, that they had taken her will for law. "Fine boys, fine spirited lads!" the General said to me one day. "They ought to be serving Her Majesty. They're cut out for soldiers." "Not both of them, General," said I. "We want one boy at home to take care of so many women."