The truth was that the daughter of the Keeper of the Key was not in the least unhappy. She had a tremendous opinion of her father; she lavished upon him all the warm affection of her young ardour. She reigned like a young queen within the confines of her home. She was about the gardens and the grounds all day, as joyous as a bird. Once or twice her governess gave her some inkling as to the suitors who came to the mansion requesting her hand, for that is an affair that cannot be kept from the most jealously-guarded damsel. The governess had a sense of humour and entertained the girl with accounts of the manner of lovers who, as she put it, washed up the marble steps of the mansion to the oak door, like waves on a shore, and were sent back again into the ocean of rejections. The young girl was much amused and secretly flattered at these events. "Ah," she would say, in a little burst of rapture, "how splendid is my father!" The pearl rejoices in the power of the oyster to shut it away from the world. Now (continued Eamonn), on the hilly slopes of the country called Sunnach there was a shepherd boy, and people who saw that he was a rare boy in looks and intelligence were filled with pity for his unhappy lot. The bodach for whom he herded was a dour, ill-conditioned fellow, full of curses and violent threats, but the boy was content in the life of the hillsides, and troubled very little about the bodach's dour looks. "Some day," he would say to himself laughingly, "I will compose terrible verses about his black mouth." One day the shepherd boy drove a little flock of the bodach's lively sheep to the fair in the town of the Seven Sisters. As he passed the mansion of the Keeper of the Key he cried out, "How up! how up! how up!" His voice was clear and full, the notes as round and sweet as the voice of the cuckoo. The daughter of the Keeper of the Key was seated by a window painting a little picture when she heard the "How up!" of the shepherd's voice. "What beautiful calls!" she exclaimed, and leaned out from the window. At the same moment the shepherd boy looked up. He was bare-headed and wore his plaids. His head was a shock of curly straw-coloured hair, his face eager, clear-cut, his eyes golden-brown and bright as the eyes of a bird. He smiled and the damsel smiled. "How up! how up! how up!" he sang out joyously to his flock as he moved down to the fair. The damsel went back to her little picture and sat there for some time staring at her palette and mixing the wrong colours.