ke o' a dollar or two, have her ashamed o' her position. It's
different from the old days, as ye say, Father Doyle."

"It is that, sure enough," he agreed.

"I'm thinkin' o' takin' a trip," she remarked, with an air of mystery.

"And where are you going?" he asked, in surprise.

"To Chicago," she vouchsafed, proudly.

"Is that not rather far for your old bones?" he inquired, with a merry
twinkle.

"Ye're fergittin', Father Doyle, that I'm only as ould as I feel, an'
that's not beyond a bit o' pleasure an' the sight o' my boy. It's such
a time since I've seen the lad that I'm most afeared I'll not be
knowin' me own son."

"Tut, tut! You don't think that. I'd know a McVeigh anywhere if I met
him," the priest expostulated.

"I've been savin' me odd change these two or three years, an' I've
plinty to pay me way comfortably. I'm wonderin', though, how the ould
place would git on without me!" Nancy remarked, dubiously.

"Never suffer in the least," the priest affirmed.

"Ye may think so, but whin I've been here day in an' day out since me
hair was as fair as Katie Duncan's, ye can understand it takes a deal
o' courage fer me to trust to others," she retorted.

The priest nodded his head slowly in acquiescence.

Two weeks of laborious calculations and preparations preceded the day
set for Nancy's departure, and during the interval her many friends
discussed the journey so fully with her that her mind was a maze of
conflicting doubts. But her contumacious nature did not permit a
retreat from her decision, and to make it utterly impossible she went
over to the new station and gave over forty-eight dollars for a ticket.
It seemed a reckless expenditure, but a peep every night at the
photographs on the wall of her room drove the mercenary aspect of it
from her and left her firmly resolved and intensely happy.

The fateful hour came at last, and quite a gathering of familiar faces
was at the station to see her depart. Father Doyle, Mrs. Jim Bennet
and family, Katie Duncan, Mrs. Conors, old Donald, Dr. Dodona and wife,
the two Piper children and a host of others saw that she was
comfortably established in the big car, much to the evident amusement
of the loitering tourists. She must have kissed at least twenty people
before the conductor came briskly on the scene and sent them pell-mell
on to the platform. The whistle shrieked and the train glided slowly
away. Nancy, a strange figure, with widow's bonnet, br