rs.
Deely's cabin shone faintly and silence again brooded over the place.
When he reached the cabin Denis Donohoe dismounted and walked into the
kitchen, his eyes bright, his steps so eager that he became conscious of
it and pulled up at once.

Mrs. Deely was sitting by the fire, her knitting needles busy. Denis
Donohoe sat down beside her. While they were speaking a young girl came
from the only room in the house, and, crossing the kitchen, stood beside
the open fireplace.

"Agnes had great news from Australia from Mary," Mrs. Deely said. "She
enclosed the price of the passage from this place to Sydney."

"I will be making the voyage the end of this month," the girl herself
added.

There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Deely carefully piloted
one of her needles through an intricate turn in the heel of the sock.

"Well, I wish you luck, Agnes," Denis Donohoe said at last, and then
gave a queer odd little laugh, a little laugh that made Mrs. Deely
regard him quickly and seriously. She noticed that he had his eyes fixed
on the ground.

"It will be a great change from this place," the girl said, fingering
something on the mantelpiece. "Mary says Sydney is a wonderful big
city."

Denis Donohoe slowly lifted his eyes, taking in the shape of the girl
from the bare feet to the bright ribbon that was tied in her hair. What
he saw was a slim girl, her limbs showing faintly in the folds of a
cheap, thin skirt, a loose, small shawl resting on the shoulders, her
bosom heaving gently where the shawl did not meet, her profile delicate
and faint in the light of the fire, her eyes, suddenly turned upon him,
being the eyes of a girl conscious of his eyes, her low breath the sweet
breath of a girl stepping into her womanhood.

"Well, God prosper you, Agnes Deely," Denis Donohoe said after some
time, and rose from his seat.

The two women came out on the road to see him off. He did not dally,
jumped on to the front of the cart and rattled away.

Overhead the sky was winter clear, the stars merry, eternal, the whole
heaven brilliant in its silent, stupendous song, its perpetual
_Magnificat_; but Denis Donohoe made the rest of the journey in a black
silence, gloom in the rigid figure, the stooping shoulders, the dangling
legs; and the hills seemed to draw their grim shadows around his tragic
ride to the lonely light in his mother's cabin on the verge of the dead
brown bog.

II

There was a continuous clatter of