dear old thing, and had only been
waiting for me to speak. After dropping a good many stitches she said:

"The world will talk, and dear heart knows what Father Dan himself will
say. But blood's thicker than water even if it's holy water, and she's
my own child's child, God bless her!"

After that we had such delicious times together, preparing for the
little stranger who was to come--cutting up blankets and sheets, and
smuggling down from the "loft" to "Mary O'Neill's room" the wooden
cradle which had once been Martin's, and covering it with bows and
ribbons.

We kept the old doctor in the dark (pretended we did) and when he
wondered "what all the fuss was about," and if "the island expected a
visit from the Queen," we told him (Christian Ann did) to "ask us no
questions and we'd tell no lies."

What children we were, we two mothers, the old one and the young one! I
used to hint, with an air of great mystery, that my baby had "somebody's
eyes," and then the dear simple old thing would say:

"Somebody's eyes, has she? Well, well! Think of that, now!"

But Christian Ann, from the lofty eminence of the motherhood of one
child twenty-five years before, was my general guide and counsellor,
answering all my foolish questions when I counted up baby's age (eleven
months now) and wondered if she could walk and talk by this time, how
many of her little teeth should have come and whether she could remember
me.

As the time approached for Martin's return our childishness increased,
and on the last day of all we carried on such a game together as must
have made the very Saints themselves look down on us and laugh.

Before I opened my eyes in the morning I was saying to myself, "Now
they're on their way to Euston," and every time I heard the clock strike
I was thinking, "Now they're in the train," or "Now they're at
Liverpool," or "Now they're on the steamer"; but all the while I sang
"Sally" and other nonsense, and pretended to be as happy as the day was
long.

Christian Ann was even more excited than myself; and though she was
always reproving me for my nervousness and telling me to be composed, I
saw her put the kettle instead of the tea-pot on to the tablecloth, and
the porridge-stick into the fire in place of the tongs.

Towards evening, when Martin was due, I had reduced myself to such a
state of weakness that Christian Ann wanted to put me to bed; but
sitting down in the _chiollagh_, and watching the road from the