The Daughter of a Soldier: A Colleen of South Ireland — Reading Notes

It was a glorious midsummer day in the south of Ireland; it seemed as though the birds wanted to sing their little hearts out. The trees were in full leaf, and every flower bloomed with extra charm and extra perfume. The old Rectory, situated in the well-known county of Cork, was in a very lonely part. On one side it was five miles away from the charming little town of Kingsala, and on the other quite ten miles from the thriving and more mercantile town of Bradley. The Rectory stood by itself, its thirty acres of grounds surrounding it. It had a back avenue and a winding front avenue, but its special charm was its great fruit garden. This was generally kept locked, for the Rector was most particular with regard to his fruit. It had in addition a great lawn, studded over with flower-beds filled mostly with roses. Just below this lawn was an apiary full of bees. Then there were fields, cultivated sometimes with grass for hay, sometimes with potatoes, sometimes again with other vegetables; but beyond the lawn and the fields were great pasture lands full of sheep, which formed a constant source of income to the Rector, who was not too well off. His income from his living was exactly one pound a day, but his wife, a haughty dame, with fiery blue eyes and red hair, had large private means; therefore Templemore was always kept in a certain kind of order. There were the necessary number of gardeners; the old-fashioned and queer-looking house had a great many servants, who did their work in the Irish fashion, which was slovenly and untidy enough; but nevertheless, they always managed to have a good dinner for "Herself," as they called Mrs. O'Brien, being very much afraid, "so to spake, of the wummen's tongue." That tongue could scathe them, and they did not want to be scathed.

On this summer day, when the story opens, Maureen lay flat on her back and looked up, up, up, through the tall trees to the blue sky, which peeped down through the branches at her. She was lying on a nest of periwinkles, some white, some blue. There was clover within reach also, and butterflies were flying here, there, and everywhere. Maureen picked one or two periwinkles and watched the butterflies as they flew from flower to flower. But she was not really interested either in the butterflies or the flowers. She was listening intently to the song of the lark, piercing, high, and clear, as he soared up from his bed of earth to his heavenly home, until he looked a mere speck in the ethereal distance. Close to her were the missel-thrush and the blackbird, and the chirping, independent little Robin Redbreast, and a few swallows darting here and there. Yes, they were all about her, they were all around her, and they made this summer day the perfection of bliss.

An Irish terrier, by name Larry, with his rough coat of golden, tawny yellow, lay by her side. Now and then Maureen fondled him with her useful little hand--that hand which was so seldom idle, and was only idle now because she was a trifle anxious--only a trifle, but still, she did not feel _quite_ herself, for undoubtedly things were happening and she did not know what they were. She wanted to know, but could not find out. She dreaded to ask, but she dreaded the reply still more.

Maureen was not exactly pretty, but she had what is called a lovable face, and her uncle, the Reverend Patrick O'Brien, loved her quite as much as he did his only daughter Kitty, aged six years, and his brave young son Dominic, a boy who, according to the well-known Irish saying, could lure the birds out of the bushes by the love-light that always seemed to shine out of his honest, deep-blue eyes--those truly Irish eyes with their thick jet-black upward-curled lashes.

Then there was Denis, a dear little fellow, some years younger than Dominic, but on the other hand some years older than Kitty, with her sweet ways and angelic dimples and masses of bright golden hair.

Maureen was the only child of Major O'Brien, twin-brother of the Reverend Patrick O'Brien. The gallant and noble Major had died of a wound inflicted in battle. He died in rescuing a brother soldier, but lived long enough to obtain the Victoria Cross and to put his only child, a little girl of six years of age, into his brother's care.