don't
know what may happen--you don't know--"

She immediately seemed to recollect something that operated as a motive
to restrain any exhibition of strong feeling or passion on her part, for
all at once she composed herself, and sitting down, merely said:--

"Mave Sullivan, I'm glad you love truth, and I believe you do; I can't,
then, resave any thanks from you, nor I won't; an' I would tell you why,
any place but here."

"I don't at all understand you," replied Mave; "but for your care and
attention to him, I'm sure it's no harm to say, may God reward you! I
will never forget it to you."

"While I have life," said Dalton feebly, and fixing his eyes upon
Sarah's face, "I, for one, won't forget her kindness."

"Kindness!" she re-echoed--"ha, ha!--well, it's no matter--it's no
matter!"

"She saved my life, Mave; I was lyin' here, and hadn't even a drink of
water, and there was no one else in the house; Mary, there, was out, an'
poor Nancy was ravin' an' ragin' with illness and pain; but she, Sarah,
was here to settle us, to attend us, to get us a drink whenever we
wanted it--to raise us up, an' to put it to our lips, an' to let us down
with as little pain as possible. Oh, how could I forget all this? Dear,
dear Sarah, how could I forget this if I was to live a thousand years?"

Con's face, while he spoke, became animated with the enthusiasm of the
feeling to which he gave utterance, and, as his eyes were fixed on Sarah
with a suitable expression, there appeared to be a warmth of emotion
in his whole manner which a sanguine person might probably interpret in
something beyond gratitude.

Sarah, after he had concluded, looked upon him with a long, earnest, but
uncertain gaze; so long, indeed, and so intensely penetrating was
it, that the whole energy of her character might, for a time, be read
clearly in the singular expression of her eyes. It was evident that her
thoughts were fluttering between pleasure and pain, cheerfulness and
gloom; but at length her countenance lost, by degrees its earnest
character, the alternate play of light and shadow over it ceased, and
the gaze changed, almost imperceptibly, into one of settled abstraction.

"It might be," she said, as if thinking aloud--"it might be--but time
will tell; and, in the manetime, everything must be done fairly--fairly;
still, if it shouldn't come to pass--if it should not--it would be
betther if I had never been born; but it may be, an' time will tell."