her room with white
muslin curtains at the windows, and scarlet-runner beans made haste to
twine themselves to a line of strings for shade. Johnny would unload a
few feet of clean pine boards from the freight train, and within a day
or two they seemed to be turned into a wing of the small castle by some
easy magic. The boys used to lay wagers and keep watch, and there was
a cheer out of the engine-cab and all along the platforms one day when
a tidy sty first appeared and a neat pig poked his nose through the
fence of it. The buns and biscuits grew famous; customers sent for
them from the towns up and down the long railroad line, and the story
of thrifty, kind-hearted little Nora and her steady young husband was
known to a surprising number of persons. When the branch road was
begun, Nora and Johnny took a few of their particular friends to board,
and business was further increased. On Sunday they always went into
town to mass and visited their uncles and aunts and Johnny's sister.
Nora never said that she was tired, and almost never was cross. She
counted her money every Saturday night, and took it to Uncle Patsy to
put into the bank. She had long talks about her mother with Uncle
Patsy, and he always wrote home for her when she had no time. Many a
pound went across the sea in the letters, and so another summer came;
and one morning when Johnny's train stopped, Nora stood at the door of
the little house and held a baby in her arms for all the boys to see.
She was white as a ghost and as happy as a queen. "I 'll be making the
buns again pretty soon," she cried cheerfully. "Have courage, boys; 't
won't be long first; this one 'll be selling them for me on the Flying
Aigle, don't you forget it!" And there was a great ringing of the
engine-bell a moment after, when the train started.

V.

It was many and many a long month after this that an old man and a
young woman and a baby were journeying in a side-car along one of the
smooth Irish roads into County Kerry. They had left the railroad an
hour before; they had landed early that morning at the Cove of Cork.
The side-car was laden deep with bundles and boxes, but the old horse
trotted briskly along until the gossoon who was driving turned into a
cart-track that led through a furzy piece of wild pasture-ground up
toward the dark rain-clouded hills.

"See, over there's Kinmare!" said the old man, looking back. "Manny 's
the day I 've trudged it and home aga