y by the car, at
the side on which Martin sat.

I reached forward to catch the first sight of Sunny Lodge, and there it
was behind its fuchsia hedge, which was just breaking into bloom.

There was Christian Ann, too, at the gate in her sunbonnet; and before
the automobile had come to a stand Martin was out of it and had her in
his arms.

I knew what that meant to the dear sweet woman, and for a moment my
spirits failed me, because it flashed upon my mind that perhaps her
heart had only warmed to me for the sake of her son.

But just as I was stepping out of the car, feeling physically weak and
slipping a little, though Father Dan and Sister Mildred were helping me
to alight, my Martin's mother rushed at me and gathered me in her arms,
crying:

"Goodness gracious me, doctor--if it isn't little Mary O'Neill, God
bless her!"--just as she did in the old, old days when I came as a child
"singing carvals to her door."

ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH CHAPTER

When I awoke next morning in "Mary O'Neill's little room," with its
odour of clean white linen and sweet-smelling scraas, the sun was
shining in at the half-open window, birds were singing, cattle were
lowing, young lambs were bleating, a crow was cawing its way across the
sky, and under the sounds of the land there was a far-off murmur of the
sea.

Through the floor (unceiled beneath) I could hear the Doctor and
Christian Ann chortling away in low tones like two cheerful old
love-birds; and when I got up and looked out I saw the pink and white
blossom of the apple and plum trees, and smelt the smoke of burning peat
from the chimney, as well as the salt of the sea-weed from the shore.

Sister Mildred came to help me to dress, and when I went downstairs to
the sweet kitchen-parlour, feeling so strong and fresh, Christian Ann,
who was tossing an oat-cake she was baking on the griddle, cried to me,
as to a child:

"Come your ways, _villish_; you know the house."

And when I stepped over the rag-work hearthrug and sat in the
"elbow-chair" in the _chiollagh_, under the silver bowls that stood on
the high mantelpiece, she cried again, as if addressing the universe in
general, for there was nobody else in the room:

"Look at that now! She's been out in the big world, and seen great
wonders, and a power of people I'll go bail, but there she is, as nice
and comfortable as if she had never been away!"

Sister Mildred came down next; and then the old doctor, who had