the way--the
Quigleys'--obviously, to judge by their subsequent proceedings, for the
purpose of continuing a scuffle with ampler elbow room. But it was only
for a very brief space that their wrestling and skirmishing among the
puddles held anybody's attention. That was speedily diverted to the far
more extraordinary and astonishing behaviour of their visitor, Mrs.
Morrough. For she suddenly sprang up off her chair, exclaiming, "Saints
above--it's Paddy--that's Paddy's voice--him that I haven't set eyes on
for nine year next Easter--and there's Felix yellin' too! The both of
them's come back, glory be to God!" And so saying out of the house she
ran, and across the road as straight as a dart, she who not an hour
before had been led gropingly in, and would have put her foot among the
glowing hearth-sods, if her guides had not pulled her away.

The neighbours could at first look on in only mute amazement, but in any
case the two boys and she were for some time so intricately entangled
that any attempt to elicit any explanation would have been futile. When
at last questions and answers were possible, no very lucid account of
the matter was forthcoming. To the many voices that demanded: "Is it
seein' you are, woman alive? Is it seein' you are?" all Mrs. Morrough
could answer was: "Ay, bedad am I, and as well as iver I done in me
life--praise be to goodness. Sure I dunno what way it was, but me sight
came back to me all of a flash, the same as it went, just the very
minyit I was hearin' the lads shoutin'. Och, Paddy, avic, but you're the
grand man grown; and Felix, och now, to be seein' you agin, and
everythin' else as clear as clear. It's meself's the lucky woman this
day--glory be to God and Mary."

In short, the marvellous restoration of her sight is to this day a
miracle, very freshly in remembrance at Lisconnel and Laraghmena, where
the inhabitants know little about paralysed optic nerves, and might
perhaps continue to wonder none the less even if they knew more. Beside
it the unexpected reappearance of the two young Morroughs seemed almost
a commonplace incident, though Paddy's fine new suit and gold
watch-chain were, indeed, very exceptional things at Lisconnel. His
story ran that he had prospered highly of late out in California, having
made enough to set him up grandly on a good bit of land in the old
country, and give Felix a fair start, and keep the old mother in comfort
all the rest of her life. With which object