Her rule from the outset had been as hard as might have been expected from one who prided herself on her self-command—­a quality that covered everybody, including my mother and me, and was only subject to softening in favour of her own offspring.

Aunt Bridget’s own daughter, a year older than myself, was a fair child with light grey eyes, round cheeks of the colour of ripe apples, and long yellow hair that was carefully combed and curled.  Her name was Betsy, which was extended by her mother to Betsy Beauty.  She was usually dressed in a muslin frock with a sash of light blue ribbon, and being understood to be delicate was constantly indulged and nearly always eating, and giving herself generally the airs of the daughter of the house.

Aunt Bridget’s step-daughter, ten years older, was a gaunt, ungainly girl with red hair and irregular features.  Her name was Nessy, and, having an instinctive sense of her dependent position, she was very humble and subservient and, as Tommy the Mate used to say, “as smooth as an old threepenny bit” to the ruling powers, which always meant my Aunt, but spiteful, insolent, and acrid to anybody who was outside my Aunt’s favour, which usually meant me.

Between my cousin and myself there were constant feuds, in which Nessy MacLeod never failed to take the side of Betsy Beauty, while my poor mother became a target for the shafts of Aunt Bridget, who said I was a wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, and no wonder, seeing how disgracefully I was indulged, and how shockingly I was being brought up.

These skirmishes went on for a considerable time without consequences, but they came at last to a foolish climax which led to serious results.

Even my mother’s life had its gleams of sunshine, and flowers were a constant joy to her.  Old Tommy, the gardener, was aware of this, and every morning sent up a bunch of them, freshly cut and wet with the dew.  But one day in the spring he could not do so, being out in the dubs of the Curragh, cutting peat for the fires.  Therefore I undertook to supply the deficiency, having already, with the large solemnity of six, begun to consider it my duty to take charge of my mother.

“Never mind, mammy, I’ll setch some slowers sor you,” I said (every f being an s in those days), and armed with a pair of scissors I skipped down to the garden.

I had chosen a bed of annuals because they were bright and fragrant, and was beginning to cut some “gilvers” when Nessy MacLeod, who had been watching from a window, came bouncing down me.

“Mary O’Neill, how dare you?” cried Nessy.  “You wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, what will your Aunt Bridget say?  Don’t you know this is Betsy Beauty’s bed, and nobody else is to touch it?”

I began to excuse myself on the ground of my mother and Tommy the Mate, but Nessy would hear no such explanation.

“Your mamma has nothing to do with it.  You know quite well that your Aunt Bridget manages everything in this house, and nothing can be done without her.”