"Would ye like me to show ye an album of photos I have of himself as a boy and a growin' lad?" Mothereen wanted to know. "He was never much on bein' took, after he grew up. But I've kept all his letters he wrote me from the Front. They're great, and ye can have the run of 'em, me pet. But first we'll go through the album together, don't ye think?" Marise said that she would be delighted. And she must have had a more angelic nature than she'd supposed, because the thought of the ordeal left her unruffled. Mothereen brought the volume in question--bound in purple morocco--and a ribbon-tied bundle of letters to the girl's sitting-room. Then, with a beaming countenance, she settled herself on the sofa and opened the album on her lap. She had evidently no suspicion that she was being patronised good-naturedly by "Johnny's" wife. Indeed, she fully believed that the girl was impatiently waiting a treat. "Come and sit down beside me, Mavourneen," she said. "That's right! Now we're cosy. See, this cute little photo at the beginnin' was Johnny when I had him first. Ye know the story, don't ye?" "No-o," confessed Marise. She could easily have given an evasive answer; but suddenly she was conscious that she _wished_ to know the story. "Maj--he--never told me." "Never told ye!" echoed Mothereen. "Never told ye aught about the father he's so proud of, and all the rest? Why, if it had not been for that father of his, I don't suppose he'd have gone to the war like a shot, the way he did." "Will you tell me--unless you think he'd rather you didn't?" asked Marise, gazing at the badly-taken photograph of a handsome, fearless-eyed child of five or six, in funny little trousers. "Sure, there's no reason _why_ he should mind. The boy has nothing to blush for. It's all the contrary!" said Mothereen. "And I _will_ tell ye. It's right ye should hear what the gossoon fought his way up from to where he stands now. Ye've heard, at the least, that the father was English?" "I think I did hear him tell someone--not me--that his father was a Yorkshireman," Marise remembered.