“I’m Cherrytoe,—­Cherrytoe that dances so pretty.  Don’t you hear, you great naughty lady?—­Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe!”

The wild scream in which the name was repeated woke even tired Mrs. Ginniss, who started upright, crying,—­

“What’s it, what’s it, Teddy?  Ochone! what ails the crather?”

“It’s only her name she’s telling, mother; and sure it’s a pretty one.  It’s Cherrytoe.”

“And what sort of a quare name is that for a christened child?  Sure we’ll call it Cherry; for wunst I heerd of a lady as was called that way,” said Mrs. Ginniss.

“Yes, we’ll call her Cherry, little sister Cherry,” said Teddy, delighted with the promise implied in his mother’s words of keeping the child for her own.  “And, mother,” added he, “mind you don’t be telling the doctor nor any one that she ain’t your own, or maybe they’ll take her away to the ’sylum or somewheres, whether we’d like it or not:  and, if they do, I’ll run off to sea; I will, by ginger!”

“Whisht, thin, with your naughty words, Teddy Ginniss!  Didn’t I bate ye enough whin ye wor little to shtop ye from swearin’?”

“Ginger ain’t swearing,” replied Teddy positively.  “I asked the master if it wor, and he said it worn’t.”

“Faith, thin, and he says it hisself, I’m thinkin’,” half asked the mother, with a shrewd twinkle of her gray eyes.  Teddy faltered and blushed, but answered manfully,—­

“No, he don’t; and he said it was low and vulgar to talk that way; and I don’t, only by times.”

“Well, thin, Teddy, see that yer don’t, only thim times whin yer hears the masther do it forninst ye:  thin it’ll be time enough for ye.  And don’t ye be forgettin’, b’y, that ye’re bound to be a gintleman afore ye die.  It was what yer poor daddy said when yer wor born, a twelvemonth arter we landed here.  ‘There, Judy,’ says he, ’there’s a native-born ’Merican for yees, wid as good a right to be Prisidint as the best ov ’em.  Now, don’t yer let him grow up a Paddy, wid no more brains nor a cow or a horse.  Make a gintleman, an’ a ‘Merican gintleman, of the spalpeen; an’ shtrike hands on it now.’

“‘Troth, thin, Michael alanna, an’ it’s a bargain,’ says I, an’, wake as I wor, give him me fist out ov the bed; an’ he shuk it hearty.  An’, though Michael died afore the year wor out, the promise I’d made him stood; an’ it’s more ways than iver ye’ll know, Teddy Ginniss, I’ve turned an’ twisted to kape ye dacent, an’ kape ye out ov the streets, niver forgittin’ for one minute that Michael had towld me there was the makin’s of a gintleman in yees, an’ that he’d left it to me to work it out.”

To this story, familiar as it was, Teddy listened with as much attention as if he had never heard it before, and, when it was ended, said,—­

“And tell about your putting me to the squire, mother.”