he Thin Woman was going back through the pine wood she saw Meehawl
MacMurrachu travelling in the same direction and his brows were in a
tangle of perplexity.

"God be with you, Meehawl MacMurrachu," said she.

"God and Mary be with you, ma'am," he replied, "I am in great trouble
this day."

"Why wouldn't you be?" said the Thin Woman.

"I came up to have a talk with your husband about a particular thing."

"If it's talk you want you have come to a good house, Meehawl."

"He's a powerful man right enough," said Meehawl.

After a few minutes the Thin Woman spoke again. "I can get the reek of
his pipe from here. Let you go right in to him now and I'll stay outside
for a while, for the sound of your two voices would give me a pain in my
head."

"Whatever will please you will please me, ma'am," said her companion,
and he went into the little house.

Meehawl MacMurrachu had good reason to be perplexed. He was the father
of one child only, and she was the most beautiful girl in the whole
world. The pity of it was that no one at all knew she was beautiful, and
she did not even know it herself. At times when she bathed in the eddy
of a mountain stream and saw her reflection looking up from the placid
water she thought that she looked very nice, and then a great sadness
would come upon her, for what is the use of looking nice if there is
nobody to see one's beauty? Beauty, also, is usefulness. The arts as
well as the crafts, the graces equally with the utilities must stand up
in the marketplace and be judged by the gombeen men.

The only house near to her father's was that occupied by Bessie
Hannigan. The other few houses were scattered widely with long, quiet
miles of hill and bog between them, so that she had hardly seen more
than a couple of men beside her father since she was born. She helped
her father and mother in all the small businesses of their house, and
every day also she drove their three cows and two goats to pasture on
the mountain slopes. Here through the sunny days the years had passed
in a slow, warm thoughtlessness wherein, without thinking, many thoughts
had entered into her mind and many pictures hung for a moment like
birds in the thin air. At first, and for a long time, she had been happy
enough; there were many things in which a child might be interested:
the spacious heavens which never wore the same beauty on any day; the
innumerable little creatures living among the grasses or in the heather;