? I couldn't try to
coax him back--now could I? She was such a baby of a thing that she
would cry if Andy only talked to me a minute after I come home. And I
didn't want to take him away from her. That was when the mill at Larne
had shut up. And so I hadn't no heart to do anything more there; it
seemed like I was dead; and I knowed that if I stayed there would be
trouble, for I could see that Andy looked at me strange, like there was
somethin' he didn't quite understand, ye may say; but I was mad, and I
didn't want to take away Dora's beau, nor to have anything to do with a
lad that could change his mind so easy. And so I come away, thinkin'
maybe I'd get some heart again on this side of the sea, and that I
could soon send for me old mother to come."

Here she leaned her head on the table and cried.

"Now, there," she said after a while, "to-day I got a letter from Dora;
there it is!" and she pushed it to the middle of the table as though it
stung her. "She says that Andy is comin' over here to make money enough
to bring her over after a while, sure. It kind o' makes my heart jump
up, miss, to think of seein' anybody from Drogheda, and more'n all to
see Andy again, that always played with me, and---- But I despise him
too, miss, fer bein' so changeable. But then, Dora she makes fools out
of all of them with her purty face and her coaxin' ways, miss. She
can't help it, maybe."

"Well, you needn't see Andy if you don't want to," said Sylvia.

"Oh! but I do want to," and Margaret laughed through her tears at her
own inconsistency. "Besides, Dora wants me to help him get a place, and
I must do that; and then, sure, miss, do you think I'd let him know
that I cared a farthin' fer him? Not a bit of it!" and Maggie pushed
back her hair and held herself up proudly.

The next morning, as Margaret laid the morning paper on Mr. Thorne's
table in the library, she ventured to ask if he knew of a place for a
friend of hers that was coming from Ireland the next week. That
gentleman had caught the infection of Sylvia's enthusiasm for the Irish
girl, and by the blush on her cheek when she made the request he was
sure that his penetration had divined the girl's secret. So he made
some inquiries about Andy, and, finding that he was "handy with tools,"
the merchant thought he could give him a place in his packing
department.

It happened, therefore, that Sylvia rarely spent any more evenings in
the kitchen. Instead of that, her littl