ove in the new soil,
while Mrs. Quirk was lonely and sad. There were none of her old cronies
with whom to discuss small gossip over the counter or in the back room
behind the shop. She missed the noise of the great city; the house was
so large that it frightened her. When Kathleen O'Connor came, the old
woman put her arm lovingly around her and said:

"Sure you will be coming to stay, Honey?"

"I hope so," replied the girl.

"Now, don't be calling me Mrs. Quirk; just call me Granny, as all the
girls did in Melbourne. It was: 'How are ye, Granny?' and 'How are the
rheumatics, Granny?' I miss the bright girls now."

Kathleen realised that here was a lonely soul, and found all the
expected strangeness in the new life vanish from her.

She set herself to the purpose of making Mrs. Quirk happy, devising a
hundred means to accomplish this. In the house she interested the old
lady in reading, with fancy work, and, above all, with the artistic
arrangement of the rooms.

"There is no reason why things should not be pretty," she said. "Let us
begin with your own room, and gradually transform the house. It is so
ugly now."

"Ugly!" cried Mrs. Quirk; "to my mind it's grand--far too grand for a
plain woman like me. But you're an O'Connor, Honey, and 'tis natural you
would know more about these things than me. Didn't I know your
grandmother? Didn't I work for her myself? But don't be telling the old
man I told you. It is strange having you in my house."

Kathleen turned the conversation into another channel. But she could not
help reflecting upon the vicissitudes of life. A few years ago and Mrs.
Quirk was a servant in her grand-parents' house; now she, by a quick
reversal of the wheel of fortune, found herself practically a servant to
Mrs. Quirk.

But her employer never permitted such a thought to enter her own mind;
it seemed almost as unthinkable as a heresy against her Faith.

"You are my friend," she told the girl; "though it is hard even to call
you that. Look at my hands and yours; mine that have scrubbed the floor
and been in the wash-tub, and yours that were just made to look at."

Kathleen took one of the old lady's hands and kissed it.

"And which are the better in the sight of God?" she asked; "the ones
that have done the work they were made to do, or those that are merely
objects of vanity? But I have worked with mine, too; scrubbed and
washed, like you."

"Tis a wicked fate that made you have to do it; m