he thruest lass God ever made an' the other on Paradise."

AFTERWORD

I thought I had to have a better ending to the story than the scraps of
things I had made over from Leerie's letters and what Peter had told me.
So I went to Hennessy.

It was midwinter. I found him cracking the ice on the pond to let the
swans in for a cold bath.

"'Tis not docthor's ordthers," he grinned by way of explanation; "but they
get so blitherin' uneasy there's no housin' them. That's the why I give
them a bit of a cold nip onct the while--sure 'tis good threatment for us
all--an' then they settle down."

I huddled deeper into a fur coat and tried to agree with Hennessy.

"Did ye see Leerie, then, since she came home?"

"Have you?"

He shirred his lips into an ecstatic pucker and whistled triumphantly.
"Wasn't I always sayin' she'd marry the finest gentleman in the land, same
as the King o' Ireland's only daughter, and go dandtherin' off to a fine
home of her own?"

"And she has."

"She has that."

"And so the story's told, Hennessy."

"Told nothin'. Sure, it isn't half told--it isn't more than half begun,
just."

"But you can't end a book that way. You have to end with an ending."

"'Tis the best way to end a book, then. Haven't ye taken the lass over the
worst o' the road an' aren't ye leavin' her with the best ahead?"

"But what is there left--to find along the way? She's found her
work--that's over with. She's found her man--that's over with. She's found
love--that's over--"

Hennessy interrupted me almost viciously. I think he wanted to prod me
instead of the ice. "What kind of talkin' is that for a person who thries
to write books about real folk? Ye harken to me. Do ye think because love
is found 'tis over with? Sure, Leerie's only caught a whiff of it
yet--'tis naught but budded for her. By an' by there come the blossom of
it an' the fruit of it. An' when death maybe withers it for a
spell--'twill be but a winther-time promise to bud an' blossom again in
the Counthry Beyond. There's no witherin' to love like hers. An' do ye
think because she has her man found there's no pretty fancy or adventure
still waitin' them along the way? An' do ye think Leerie's work will ever
be done? Tell me that!"

The shirr tightened into something like contempt. Hennessy looked down
upon me with undisguised pity.

"Did ye ever know Leerie at all, at all, I'm wondtherin'--to be savin'
things like that? Don't ye know for the