The front door opened, I marched through, and swung my small bag around in front of my skirts. "Please tell your mistress that I have arrived."

     The tall man holding the lantern stood dressed in a night robe. The curls on his head flew in every direction indicating that he had just risen from bed. I reached inside my coat's inner pocket, pulled out a watch, and noticed the hands in the one-o'clock position Dublin time.

     "It's after midnight, ma'am," he said in a thick Irish brogue, "and I think you've come to the wrong house."

     I slipped the watch back inside the pocket and withdrew a note. "This is the Kilkenny residence, isn't it?"

     "Yes, it is, but-"

     I stretched out the hand holding my small bag and he took it. Then I pointed out the door. "The driver left my trunk at the base of the stoop. Would you be so kind as to get it for me … after you've summoned Mrs. Kilkenny, that is?"

     The man leaned back and the sound of a wounded animal issued from his throat. "There is no Mrs. Kilkenny."

     I pointed at him. "Of course there is. You're her servant, aren't you?"

     "I'm Mr. Kilkenny. I alone reside here. Now, do you mind explaining who the devil you are?"

     I curtsied, fighting the red from invading my face. "My most humble apologies. I'm Miss Jane Walden, correspondent on assignment for The Sun of Baltimore in the great American state of Maryland. At your service, sir."

     "Where is Mr. Walden?"

     "There is no Mr. Walden."

     He dropped my bag on the floor. I stared at it, looked at him, and raised my eyebrows.

     "Of course there is," he said. "There must be a Mr. Walden, Miss Walden. I was supposed to go to the Dublin docks tomorrow and fetch a Mr. Walden. Now, where is he?"

     I shook my head. "How would I know? Mrs. Kilkenny et al from the Conciliation Hall government was supposed to have met me at the Dublin docks today. Now, it's early morning of the day after …" I brushed my hands together several times. "… and I had a terrible time getting here."

     Mr. Kilkenny groaned. "A female correspondent? How could any tabloid send a female … and a little girl at that?"

     I snickered in place of my real desire to grab his neck and squeeze, but I had gone through the very same thing when I first was hired by The Sun. Men hate it when a woman hold what men deem to be a man's job. Well, I've learned how to handle that. I can turn off the charm quicker than a woman jilted. "I know I'm not very tall … even for a woman, but I'll have you know my twenty-second birthday will be in two months … April 18, 1846." I folded my arms, leaned back, and popped my eyes wide open. "Have you ever read anything I've published?"

     "No, I haven't," he snorted.

     "Then don't judge a book …" I hesitated, setting a trap.

     "… by its cover?" he finished.

     "I was going to say 'by the sex of its author'." I didn't dare crack a smile, but couldn't help an internal snicker.

     "And I suppose you'll cite Jane Austen as your prime example."

     "No," I replied, weaving my head back and forth. "I wouldn't cite her at all. She's just … there."

     He pointed at my bonnet. "I see your hair matches your temperament."

     I undid my bonnet, removed it, and mashed my lips together. "Mr. Kilkenny, red hair affecting red tempers is an old wives tale. I don't anger, sir. I drive with determination. Please don't mistake the one for the other." I slapped my hands together, dropped them in front of my skirts, and allowed the bonnet to dangle from its strap. "So, you're the local government official who's to show me around Conciliation Hall."

     He nodded and we fell into an uneasy silence staring at one another, but it was easier for me than him. I suspected his self-manufactured pain originated from the depths of his own mind. I was the more comfortable by far, because I felt at ease with myself at all times. Most people, when found in situations like the one confronting us, are uncomfortable because they are first and foremost ill at ease with themselves.

     I offered a smile for a truce. "Mr. Kilkenny, it's far too late to take me to a hotel, so I suggest you offer me a room for the night."

     "Miss Walden, that is not possible."

     "You don't mind, do you?"

     "Whether or not I do is moot. I have neighbors and a reputation to uphold."

     I pointed out the door. "Then you prefer I sleep on the stoop? It's February in Ireland, sir. I would think a young unmarried American woman freezing to death outside your house would be far worse than one sleeping comfortably inside it. Wouldn't you agree?"

     Mr. Kilkenny shook his head. "As soon as I bring in your trunk, I'll show you to a room."

     I offered my nicest smile. Perhaps he thawed a little and I could at last establish friendlier relations between us. "I'm glad you decided to let me stay with you."

     "On the contrary, Miss Walden, as soon as I've secured your trunk, it's me intention to walk three blocks and wake up a very good friend to beg him to keep me for the night."

     I threw a hand above my chest, batted my eyebrows, and smiled. "You would leave a lady alone in a strange house?"

     "I wouldn't leave a lady alone." He walked outside, returned with my trunk, and set it down. "But I could leave you, for it will be safer for you than for any intruder foolhardy enough to trespass." He shut the door and bolted it.

     I laughed. "You've the poet about you, sir. But, in all probability, so may most of your Irish brethren."

     "I'd say there's some truth in that."

     "Well, since that's settled, tell me about the situation in Ireland."

     "It can wait 'til morning, can it not?"

     "I was anxious to hear a little of the situation on the ride from the docks, only you never graced me with your presence."

     He turned and scrutinized me from head to toe, his face apparently frozen in thought. "It's 'An Gorta Mor', Miss Walden. That is what's happening."

     "An Gorta Mor?"

     "An Gorta Mor. Hard times. Do you know the core of it?"

     "As a matter of fact, I do. I just didn't know the Gaelic term for it. It started in the fall of forty-five, I believe. The potato crop failed last summer, and many tenant farmers couldn't earn enough to pay off the loan for planting their potatoes, let alone to feed their families."

     I looked at the door. "At the docks, and along the carriage ride, even at this late hour, I've noticed several people poorly dressed for the cold weather walking your streets. And what's the story behind the band of vagrants waiting for my ship to dock on the quay? Is that normal, since the fall of 1845, I mean?"

     His hot glare could have melted the heart of the staunchest adversary. However, my advantage being in the words of a correspondent enabled me to withstand the onslaught.

     "An Gorta Mor," he said. "Do you know the literal translation?"

     "No, sir."

     "It means 'the great hunger'." He looked away again. "Moreover, the Irish people don't like the English, Miss Walden, nor those of English descent. So, you see, it's not because you're a female correspondent. It's because you're sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong. Requests to England have been made for assistance, and they're offering up only a deaf ear in return."

     I felt my brows drawing closer together. I offered him solace, and a truce in that solace. "I know. It's a horrible and untenable situation. I intend to extract the truth and deliver it to the sympathetic ears of my readers back in Baltimore."

     "I, like most true Irishmen, feel the English have no right to rule the Irish at all, hunger or no."

     He had witnessed my empathetic offering, regarded it as feminine weakness, and decided to attack. Soon he would find his windy energies would be wasted against my Gibraltar-like stand. "If ample help did come, I wouldn't be surprised if your own political agenda would make you blind to it."

     He bounded towards me, shoulders hunched and leaning forward to better display his larger physical presence. "Just hard times."

     I leaned forward and met him nose to nose-my granite versus his papier-mβchι. "Just give me the facts, Mr. Kilkenny, and I shall write a fair account of them."

     Mr. Kilkenny sucked in his lips and lowered his eyebrows. He hurried into the front parlor and worked on starting a fire in the hearth; but I suspected part of the reason for his hasty exit lay in gaining time to lighten his reddened complexion.

     I stepped into the archway. "I've come to report the situation, not to go around boohooing and allowing my feelings to become bruised by a lack of sentiment towards the English or the descendants thereof. What do you take me for, a woman?"

     "Hardly that, Miss Walden."

     "I myself am of recent English origin, and I could take equal offense, however I choose not to be injured by it."

     He turned to me. "Have you no feminine feelings?"

     I nodded. "I have, but I know when it is appropriate to display them. I'll get what I came for, and you won't wrench a single feminine feeling out of me until you yourself warm up." He piled clumps of peat in anticipation of a flame that might soon fire them up. I stepped forward, clasped my hands together, and let them bounce off my skirts. "Mr. Kilkenny, the fire won't be necessary. The hour is late, so if you would show me to my room, I'll retire for the evening."

     He turned around. "You'll not be wanting to partake in a little sustenance then before bed?"

     "I'm amply … sustenanced."

     He shook his head. "Strange grammar for a tabloid writer." He abandoned his efforts at fire making. "I'll build a fire in your room then."

     "There's no need. I'm quite capable of igniting a fire."

     He glared at me. "Oh, I'm willing to wager that you are."

     I shook my head. "I meant building one in a hearth."

     He stood up holding his lantern, and I could see the cold breath expel from between his thin lips and float towards the ceiling until it drifted out of the lantern's range. His late-twenties handsomeness became him, piquing my curiosity as to why he had never married. Of course, if his manners towards me were the same towards all women, it wasn't hard to guess the cause of any woman's reluctance.

     "I'm sure you are capable, Miss Walden … of building a coal fire. However, we use peat in Ireland, and there is a bit of a trick to it. I had better show you."

     "We use wood where I come from. Do you have water available?"

     "There is a bowl upstairs. Is that sufficient?"

     "And a pitcher?"

     "You're a lot of trouble," he said, walking towards me. Extending an arm, I took it, and he led me up the stairs to the second floor. Upon entering a cold and cramped bedchamber, he lit a candle on the nightstand beside the bed, started a worthy fire in the hearth, left, and returned with a pitcher.

     "This was my sister's room. She married a few months back and moved to Prince Edward Island."

     "I see." I scanned the claustrophobic but well-kept room. It appeared his sister had a more expensive taste in accommodations. The bed was canopied, the furniture mahogany, and the windows dressed elaborately with a generosity of lace.

     "You were fond of your sister I take it."

     "How would you know?"

     Surveying the room and comparing the relative opulence with the shabbiness I had seen elsewhere on the first floor, I harrumphed. "Trust me, I know."

     He harrumphed back and then shook his head. "Ah, you're a woman after all."

     I shrugged my shoulders. "That I can't deny."

     "I hope you don't rue the day you arrived in Ireland." He marched to the door, spun around, and glared at me. "I'll return with your trunk." He pivoted around, but turned back again. "And a charmingly beautiful female throwing away her assets to pursue the felonious profession of news correspondent … well, it's … it's …"

     "Appalling?" I said, seeing a little humor in his ranting.

     "I was going to say 'unforgivable'." He spun away from me.

     The sting hit my heart, and I wanted to throw something at him. "You think so little of me, then?"

     He slapped his hat on in defiance of the laws of etiquette to punctuate his next remark. "As little as possible."

     I dug a little deeper for more of the infamous mischief my American benefactor, Miss Harlacher, so well credited me for. "And that has nothing to do with my being female?"

     A huff of steam burst through his lips. "On the contrary, it has everything to do with it."

     I eased towards him and stared into his eyes. "If you would treat me as just another human being instead of a female, an obvious solution to my housing may quickly present itself."

     Mr. Kilkenny hunched his shoulders. "Let us understand one thing, Miss Walden. You're here to report on the condition of the bad times befalling me people. You may keep your womanly opinions in your head as long as you keep them out of your tabloid."

     Realizing our situation had gotten out of hand, I placed my hands in front of my skirts and bounced them up and down as playfully as I had when I turned twelve. "To answer your concern of a moment ago, I won't rue the day I came. I only hope you won't rue it."

     He stood still, apparently drinking in my inflection trying to decipher its interpretation. I wanted him to be certain of the sincerity in what I had said-and what I hoped-and that these final words to him before we parted would help set our bad start straight.

     "I truly mean that, Mr. Kilkenny," I said, as forthright as I knew how.

     He grimaced, turned, and left the room.

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