Her mother was an invalid, and her father a delightful, scholarly, autocratic, selfish old gentleman, who ruled his household with a rod of iron.

Salemina coddled and nursed them both during all her young life; indeed, little as she realised it, she never had any separate existence or individuality until they both died, when she was thirty-one or two years old." "And what became of the young Irishman?
Was he faithful to his first love, or did he marry ?" "He married, many years afterward, and that was the time I first heard the story.

His marriage took place in Dublin, on the very day, I believe, that Salemina's father was buried; for Fate has the most relentless way of arranging these coincidences.

I don't remember his name, and I don't know where he lives or what has become of him.

I imagine the romance has been dead and buried in rose-leaves for years; Salemina never has spoken of it to me, but it would account for her sentimental championship of Ireland.".