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When she returned to the valley with her husband and her young child she had inaugurated her life's dream. Her son John was to be her final justification before the world and, in a most wondrous way, had her dream begun to come true. She had reared him well, and he was so different from Ned Brennan. He was of a kindly disposition and, in the opinion of Master Donnellan, who was well hated by his mother, gave promise of great things. He had passed through the National School in some way that was known only to Mrs. Brennan, to "a grand College in England." He appeared as an extraordinary exception to the breed of the valley, especially when one considered the characters of both his parents.

Mrs. Brennan dearly loved her son, but even here, as in every phase of her life, the curious twist of her nature revealed itself. Hers was a selfish love, for it had mostly to do with the triumph he represented for her before the people of the valley. But this was her dream, and a dream may often become dearer than a child. It was her one sustaining joy, and she could not bear to think of any shadow falling down to darken its grandeur. The least suspicion of a calamity of this kind always had the effect of reducing to ruins the brazen front of the Mrs. Brennan who presented herself to the valley and of giving her a kind of fainting in her very heart.