I shall never forget how you packed me off to school at Brighton, and
Brian to Westward Ho! the year father died and left us to you--the most
troublesome legacy a poor bachelor parson ever had! I'd made up my mind
to hate England. Brian couldn't hate anything or anybody: dreamers don't
know how to hate: and I wanted to hate you for sending us there. I
wanted to be hated and misunderstood. I disguised myself as a Leprechaun
and sulked; but it didn't work where you were concerned. You understood
me as no one else ever could--or will, I believe. You taught me
something about life, and to see that people are much the same all over
the world, if you "take them by the heart."
You took _me_ by the heart, and you held me by it, from the time I was
twelve till the time when you gave your life for your country. Ten
years! When I tell them over now, as a nun tells the beads of her
rosary, I realize what good years they were, and how their
goodness--with such goodness as I had in me to face them--came through
you.
Even after you died, you seemed to be near, with encouragement and
advice. Remembering how pleased you were, when I decided to train as a
nurse, added later to the sense of your nearness, because I felt you
would rejoice when I was able to be of real use. It was only after you
went that my work began to count, but I was sure you knew. I could hear
your voice say, "Good girl! Hurrah for you!" when I got the gold medal
for nursing the contagious cases; your dear old Irish voice, as it used
to say the same words when I brought you my school prizes.
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