may as well take it easy. I've got a lot to say to you.'

'He said he wouldn't be back this way till Friday week,' says she. 'He
has an escort to see to then, and he expected to be at Stony Creek in a
couple of hours from this. He'll have to ride for it.'

We walked over to the house. Neither of us said anything for a bit.
Mother was sitting in her old chair by the fire knitting. Many a good
pair of woollen socks she'd sent us, and many's the time we'd had call
to bless her and her knitting--as we sat our horses, night after night,
in a perishing frost, or when the rain set in that run of wet winters we
had, when we'd hardly a dry stitch on us by the week together, when
we had enough of them and the neck wrappers, I expect plenty of others
round about were glad to get 'em. It was partly for good nature, for
mother was always a kind-hearted poor soul as ever was, and would give
away the shoes off her feet--like most Irish people I've met--to any one
that wanted them worse than herself, and partly for the ease it gave
her mind to be always doing something steady like. Mother hadn't
book-learning, and didn't always understand the things Aileen read to
her. She was getting too old to do much in the house now. But her eyes
were wonderful good still, and this knitting was about the greatest
pleasure she had left in the world. If anything had happened to stop her
from going on with that, I don't believe she would have lived a month.

Her poor old face brightened up when she seen me, and for a few minutes
you'd have said no thought of trouble could come anigh her. Then the
tears rolled down her cheeks, and I could see her lips moving, though
she did not speak the words. I knew what she was doing, and if that
could have kept us right we'd never have gone wrong in the world. But it
was to be, I suppose.

Mother was a deal older-looking, and couldn't move about as well as she
did. Aileen said she'd often sit out in the sun for an hour together and
watch her walking up the garden, or putting up the calves, and carrying
in the water from the creek, and say nothing. Sometimes she thought her
mind was going a bit, and then again she'd seem as sensible as ever she
was. To-day, after a bit, she came round and talked more and asked about
the neighbours, seemed more curious like, than she'd done, Aileen said,
for many a long day.

'You must have something to eat, Dick,' says Aileen; 'it's a long ride
from--from where we know--and wh