d a family! Anyone who's
iver had th' quiet to listen to th' blessed little people--_him_ to fill
up his ears wid th' clatter of mortial tongues. No? Since I lift here I've
had no minute o' peace--oh, Moira, th' country there--th' great flat
hidjious country of thim--an' th' people like it--flat an' fruitful. An'
oh, Moira, aroon, it's my heart breakin' in me, that now I've worked and
worked there and done my mortial task an' had my purgatory before my time,
an' I've come back to live again--that ye've no single welcomin' word to
bid me stay."

The loving Irish heart of the woman melted in a misunderstanding sympathy
and remorse. "Why, poor Piper Tim, I didn't mean ye should go back to them
or their country if ye like it better here. Ye're welcome every day of the
year from now till judgment tramp. I only meant--why--seem' they were your
own folks--and all, that ye'd sort o' taken to thim--the way most do, when
it's their own blood."

She flowed on in a stream of fumbling, warm-hearted, mistaken apology
that sickened the old man's soul. When he finally rose for his great
adventure, he spoke timidly, with a wretched foreknowledge of what her
answer would be.

"Och, Piper Tim, 'tis real sweet of ye to think of it and ask me, an' I'd
like fine to go. Sure, I've not been on the Round Stone of an
evening--why, not since you went away I do believe! But Ralph's goin' to
the grange meetin' to-night, an' one of th' childer is restless with a
cough, and I think I'll not go. My feet get sort of sore-like, too, after
bein' on them all day."

V.

As he stepped out from the warm, brightly lighted room, the night seemed
chill and black, but after a moment his eyes dilated and he saw the stars
shining through the densely hanging maple leaves.

Up by the Round Stone the valley opened out beneath him. Restlessly he
looked up and down the road and across the valley with a questing glance
which did not show him what he sought. The night for all its dark corners
had nothing in it for him beyond what lay openly before him. He put out
his hand instinctively for his pipes, remembered that he had left them at
the house, and sprang to his feet to return for them. Perhaps Moira would
come out with him now. Perhaps the child had gone to sleep. The brief stay
in the ample twilight of the hillside had given him a faint, momentary
courage to appeal again to her against the narrow brightness of her
prison.

Moira sat by the kitchen ta