at, Madame."

"Thrue for you, sir, 'tis as you say. There's language more than tongue
of man can shpake. But listen, thin, to me"--her voice got
lower--"for 'tis not the furst time, a thing like that, the lady she
is--granddaughter of a Seigneur, and descinded from nobility in France!
'Tis not the furst time to be doin' brave things. Just a shlip of a girl
she was, three years ago, afther her mother died, an' she was back from
convint. A woman come to the parish an' was took sick in the house of
her brother--from France she was. Small-pox they said at furst. 'Twas
no small-pox, but plague, got upon the seas. Alone she was in the
house--her brother left her alone, the black-hearted coward. The people
wouldn't go near the place. The Cure was away. Alone the woman was--poor
soul! Who wint--who wint and cared for her? Who do ye think, sir?"

"Mademoiselle?"

"None other. 'Go tell Mrs. Flynn,' says she, 'to care for my father
till I come back,' an' away she wint to the house of plague. A week she
stayed, an' no one wint near her. Alone she was with the woman and the
plague. 'Lave her be,' said the Cure when he come back; ''tis for the
love of God. God is with her--lave her be, and pray for her,' says he.
An' he wint himself, but she would not let him in. ''Tis my work,' says
she. ''Tis God's work for me to do,' says she. 'An' the woman will live
if 'tis God's will,' says she. 'There's an agnus dei on her breast,'
says she. 'Go an' pray,' says she. Pray the Cure did, an' pray did we
all, but the woman died of the plague. All alone did Rosalie draw her to
the grave on a stone-boat down the lane, an' over the hill, an' into the
churchyard. An' buried her with her own hands at night, no one knowin'
till the mornin', she did. So it was. An' the burial over, she wint back
an' burned the house to the ground--sarve the villain right that lave
the sick woman alone! An' her own clothes she burned, an' put on the
clothes I brought her wid me own hand. An' for that thing she did, the
love o' God in her heart, is it for Widdy Flynn or Cure or anny other to
forgit? Shure the Cure was for iver broken-hearted, for that he was sick
abed for days an' could not go to the house when the woman died, an'
say to Rosalie, 'Let me in for her last hour.' But the word of
Rosalie--shure 'twas as good as the words of a praste, savin' the Cure
prisince wheriver he may be!"

This was the story of Rosalie which Mrs. Flynn told Charley, as he stood
at t