CHAPTER XXX

You will remember that Basil Mackenzie, an aristocratic young Scotchman, of Aberdeen, riding to the hares and hounds, wooed and won Maggie O’Conner from the whins and silver hazels of Ballyporeen. But what you do not know is that several generations later, the good Saints, up in high heaven’s court, gave that couple three chances each to mold the life of a descendant . . . a baby girl . . . just born upon earth. Basil Mackenzie first crowned her with hair like the mist around the mountains of Glencoe when the sun shines through,—and immediately Maggie O’Conner gave her eyes the color of the blue-black waters at Kilkee. Then the man, remembering sensibly that the outward appearance is not all, endowed her with a keen Scotch mind,—but the woman smiled and slipped an Irish heart into her. For a long time Basil pondered cannily, wondering how he might use his last chance and finally gave her the sturdiest of Scotch chins,—but Maggie O’Conner laughed and pressed a roguish V-shaped cleft into the center of it.

Practical folks there are, who will not believe this; but here, nineteen years later, was Katherine Deal with her misty Glencoe hair and her blue-black Kilkenny eyes and her gay great-granny’s dimple in the middle of her daur great-grandfaither’s chin. Sure, and what more proof could a-body be needin’? Here she was,—Katherine, the only daughter of Mackenzie Deal,—this warm summer afternoon, stretched out in her Grandmother Deal’s hammock on the screened-in sitting-room porch of the farmhouse, her slim lithe body in its blue and white sport suit curved comfortably in the hammock’s old meshes, one slim silken foot rhythmically tapping the floor.

“As free and irresponsible as any colt in a pasture,” old Abbie Deal thought, as she looked out at her granddaughter, “and just about as untamed too.”

Across the lane road, under the Lombardys, Abbie could see the latest model of sport roadster, blue and white, a special order of Mack’s. Whether Katherine’s dress had been ordered to match the car, or the car to match the dress, Abbie did not know.

Old Abbie Deal and her granddaughter did not have a great many interests in common. They did not seem able to get along comfortably for any length of time. Katherine had not the slightest atom of her cousin Laura’s interest in either the grandmother’s opinions or reminiscences. With her usual blunt frankness, she had more than once announced before a group of the relatives, including the object of her remarks: “Granny Deal. . . .” (Incidentally, she was the only one of the seven grandchildren who called her “Granny.”) “Granny Deal and I don’t hit it off any too well.” She said it with the air of one who modestly announces an accomplishment.

But for some reason, she had driven in alone from Omaha several times recently. The dashing new roadster had bitten off the graveled miles between Omaha and Cedartown frequently this summer of Abbie Deal’s seventy-ninth year. Rather strangely, for her usual active self, the girl seemed to like to sit quietly under the cedars or swing idly in the hammock on the screen porch. This afternoon she had a book into which she occasionally dived, and as often dropped back in her lap.