Lord
knows His own business best. He usually manages to bring things out
right in the end, so He does."

Nancy sat before the kitchen stove, rocking to and fro, and gazing
abstractedly before her. Her mood was a reminiscent one and I knew if I
gave her time enough she would launch forth into one of the interesting
narratives of which she possessed a goodly store. To have interrupted
her train of thought by even a whisper would have been fatal; silence
and patience must be my watch-words. Presently she turned to me with the
query:

"'Member Mona, the old apple-woman you met here about a year ago?"

Remember the apple-woman? Indeed I did; once having met Mona it was
impossible to forget her. Besides, she was, one might say, one of the
landmarks of the town, the frail, shadowy little woman who sold her
apples and peanuts and candy from her stand on the street-corner.
Nancy's words reminded me that I had not seen Mona lately at her usual
place of business.

"Well," resumed Nancy, "Mona's gone, gone forever. Poor Mona! It's the
hard life she's had, and I'm after thinkin' she's not sorry that it's
over and she's found peace an' happiness at last. Want to know her
story? Well, I'll tell it to you, for it's me that can, havin' known her
since we was wee scraps of babies playin' on the floor together back
there in the old country. Yes, indeed, we were babies together, we grew
up together, an' we come out here to America on the same ship. Dear,
dear, how long ago that was, an' it don't seem much more than yesterday.

"Well, as I was sayin', times was mighty hard in Ireland that year,
specially in the little town where me an' Mona was born an' reared.
Crops failed, work was slack; finally, famine an' pestilence took
possession of the land. Ah! child, child, you cannot dream what them
words mean, famine an' pestilence. To see the rich growin' poor, the
poor starvin' an' dyin' on every hand; the little children cryin' with
cold an' hunger, an' the fathers an' mothers with ne'er a scrap of food
to give 'em. That was the state of things in Ireland the year we left
it.

"The plague had carried off my father an' mother, my brothers was all
married an' moved away, an' my only sister was at service in London, so
when Mona begged me to come to America with her an' Michael an' the
little ones, I just jumped at the chance. Michael was a good fellow,
sober an' industrious, but there was no work to be had at home and he
had heard such