nce in the world into which
she has so abruptly come I do not know, for it is as though someone
inspired her with the mood of nonchalance, saying: 'Be of good cheer,
and care not a pin about anything: for God is God.'

I heard the ocean swing hoarse like heavy ordnance against the cliffs
below, where they meet the outer surface of the southern of the two
claws of land that form the harbour: and the thought came into my mind:
'If now I taught her to speak, to read, I could sometimes make her read
a book to me.'

The winds seemed wilfully struggling for the house to snatch and wing it
away into the drear Eternities of the night: and I could not but heave
the sigh: 'Alas for us two poor waifs and castaways of our race, little
bits of flotsam and seaweed-hair cast up here a moment, ah me, on this
shore of the Ages, soon to be dragged back, O turgid Eternity, into thy
abysmal gorge; and upon what strand--who shall say?--shall she next be
flung, and I, divided then perhaps by all the stretch of the
trillion-distanced astral gulf?' And such a pity, and a wringing of the
heart, seemed in things, that a tear fell from my eyes that ominous
midnight.

She started up at a gust of more appalling volume, rubbing her eyes,
with dishevelled hair (it must have been about midnight), listening a
minute, with that demure, droll interest of hers, to the noise of the
elements, and then smiled to me; rose then, left the room, and presently
returned with a pomegranate and some almonds on a plate, also some
delicious old sweet wine in a Samian cruche, and an old silver cup, gilt
inside, standing in a zarf. These she placed on the table near me, I
murmuring: 'Hospitality.'

She looked at the book, which I read as I ate, with lowered left
eye-lid, seeking to guess its use, I suppose. Most things she
understands at once, but this must have baffled her: for to see one
looking fixedly at a thing, and not know what one is looking at it for,
must be very disconcerting.

I held it up before her, saying:

"Shall I teach you to read it? If I did, how would you repay me, you
Clodagh?"

She cocked her eyes, seeking to comprehend. God knows, at that moment I
pitied the poor dumb waif, alone in all the whole round earth with me.
The candle-flame, moved by the wind like a slow-painting brush,
flickered upon her face, though every cranny was closed.

"Perhaps, then," I said, "I will teach you. You are a pitiable little
derelict of your race, you kno