"Yes," he replied, "and I don't know but what it is only right. We all go to the market together, trade our goods together, rub elbows together, clear the land together, fight together. Why shouldn't we live together in peace? Intolerance and bigotry are dead and buried. We have laid the foundations of the greatest country in the world."
"Thank God for that!" breathed Mrs. Allison.
"We are respected above all calculation," Mr. Allison continued. "Our Loyalty now is unquestioned."
"Yes, you are right, girl," said her father. "We can thank Captain Meagher. The frustration and the exposure of that plot has increased our reputation an hundredfold. Heretofore, the Catholic population had been regarded as an insignificant element, but when the ambitions of the enemy to secure their coöperation were discovered, the value of the Catholics to the country suddenly rose."
"Our unity must have created a lasting impression," Marjorie remarked.
"Not alone our unity, but our loyalty as well. The government has learned that we have been ever true to the land of our birth, ever loyal to the country of our adoption. It has thoughtfully considered the value of our sacrifices, and has carefully estimated our contribution to the cause of freedom. When the charter of liberty assumes a more definite form our rights will specifically be determined. Of that I am reasonably certain. The enemy failed to allure us from our country in its time of need; our country will not abandon us in our time of need."
"Stephen helped to do it," replied her father.
That same evening, during a stolen moment while her mother was busied with the turning of the buckwheat cakes, Marjorie crept to her father's knee and folded her arms over it.
"Daddy!" she looked up at him from her seated posture on the floor. "What would you say to a very eligible young man who had told you that he was very fond of you?"
"What would I say?" asked the father in surprise.
"I would not say anything. I would have him examined."
"No, Daddy. This is serious," and she pushed his knee from her as she spoke.
"I am serious. If a man told me that he was very fond of me, I would question his sanity."
"You know what I mean. I mean if you were a girl and----"