"No; they call them blue because in the distance they look as clear and blue as the loveliest amethyst.

Ah! it's a beautiful place, Dominic, as you'll say." "And big ?" "Big ?" The lady laughed softly.
"Yes, boy; it's big.

There's plenty of land out yonder, and so the government's pretty generous with it.

Here at home they count a man's estate by acres: we do it in square miles out there." "Look here, Dominic," said the lady, after answering scores of questions, during what seemed to Nic the happiest hours he had ever spent in his life, "I've been thinking." "Yes, madam." "Say Lady O'Hara, boy," cried the visitor petulantly; and then, with a sad smile full of pathos on her quivering lip, she added softly, "I can't tell ye to call me mother: my son died, Dominic, just when he began to know me; but look here," she cried, brightening, though the lad could see tears in her fine dark eyes, out of which she seemed to peer as from passing clouds.

"Sure, I tell ye I've been thinking.