The lines referred to a joke which was never forgotten against Kathleen. When she first came to Warford High School, fresh from her native Erin, she had been taken with the rest of her class to witness a grand boat-race between the Grammar School and a rival college from Oswestry. Many of the girls had brothers in the contest, and the Warford favours were freely distributed on the bank. A little boy had come up to Kathleen and politely begged her to accept the scarlet bow of the Grammar School, and sport it as a token of goodwill towards the heroes of the town.