.

Although Nancy had abandoned the public service, yet hers was no
humdrum existence. She still had duties to perform which occupied her
thoughts from daylight to dusk. She frequently visited the Dodonas,
who lived in the big Piper house. And the Piper children played about
her front door, much as her own son and Johnny Keene had done so many
years before. Other children, too, found the vicinity of the widow
McVeigh's a very tempting resort, and their parents were well
satisfied, for they had learned to love and respect the white-haired
woman who chose to be their guardian.

"I'll niver get enough o' the dears," she would say to the mothers, and
they quite believed her.

In the winter of the following year Will Devitt came home from the
North-West. He had been absent three years, and during that time had
secured a grant of land. He boasted of his possessions to his
foster-mother, and she was almost as proud of them as he was himself.

"It's a grand country, sure, this Canada of ours, an' were I younger
I'd go back wi' ye, Will. D'ye think we could find business fer a
tavern?" she asked him one day.

"You would just make your fortune," Will responded, enthusiastically.

Nancy smiled and shook her head.

"I'm only talkin' like a silly ould woman, laddie. In the first place,
I'm no fit to run a tavern, an' in the second, it's no fittin'
occupation fer the loikes o' me."

Will had been home a short while when Nancy's suspicions were aroused,
and being unable to lay them bare to Katie Duncan, she told them to
Mrs. Doctor Dodona.

"There's somethin' mysterious in the behavior o' the young folk," she
confided. "I'm uncommon versed in the language of sighs an' tender
looks, an' it's comin' to somethin' before long."

"You don't mean that Will Devitt is in love?" the doctor's wife asked,
in mild surprise.

"I'm afeard it's just that," Nancy admitted, regretfully.

"And with whom, pray?"

Nancy bent forward and whispered in her ear.

"Your Katie!" Sophia Dodona exclaimed.

Nancy nodded, and they both laughed.

Nancy knew instinctively that her two foster-children had something
they wished to say to her, and she purposely kept them at arm's length,
whilst she enjoyed their discomfiture.

"It's rare fun," she told Sophia.

Will Devitt was becoming desperate, for he must soon get himself back
to his prairie farm. So, after a lengthy twilight consultation with
his heart's desire, he came tramping aw