Our Little Irish Cousin

Did you ever hear of the Blarney Stone? Or did you ever hear one person say to another, who has made a very polite or flattering speech, "Well, well, I think you must have kissed the Blarney Stone?"

Perhaps you did not understand the reason for such a remark. Now you shall hear it.

If you ever climb to the top of the walls of Blarney Castle and look down over the walls on the outside, you will see a certain stone.

It is a magic stone, you may be told. It has a great charm, for, if you kiss it, you will be blessed ever after with the power of eloquent speech. Your words to charm and wheedle will never fail you. You will always be able to say the right thing in the right place at the right time. You will say it so well you will make yourself very pleasing to your listeners.

But how is anybody able to kiss the Blarney Stone? It is too far down to be reached from the top, and too far up to be reached from the bottom. There is only one way. You must have a rope tied to your waist, and trust some one to let you down over the wall till you reach it.

There are some people foolish enough to do this very thing.

As Mollie stood looking and wishing she dared try it, she heard some one telling a story. It was about a young man who got his friends to lower him out over the wall.

But, just as his lips touched the stone, a shower of coins fell to the ground below. The young man had forgotten to take the money out of his pockets.

Every one laughed at the story, and Mollie wished she could have been there to see the funny sight.

"I didn't kiss the real Blarney Stone," she told Norah. "But there was one inside the walls. It was a sort of make-believe Blarney Stone, and we all kissed that instead."

"Daniel O'Connell must have been to Blarney Castle and kissed the stone," said Norah, quite seriously. "How else could he have had the power to move every one by his words? He was a great man. When I grow up, I'll be after going to the great city of Dublin to see his monimint. You see if I don't, Mollie darlint."

"Maybe we'll be going together, Norah," was the answer.

And the two little girls skipped arm in arm across the fields of the beautiful Emerald Isle.

THE END