walking along going
home wit' me to her dinner; 't was the first speech I had wit' Nora.
''T is the mills you mane?' says I. 'No, no, Uncle Patsy!' says she,
'it ain't the mills at all, at all; 't is on the Road I 'm going.' I
t'ought she 'd some wild notion she 'd soon be laughing at, but she
settled down very quiet-like with Aunty Biddy here, knowing yourselves
to be going to Lawrence, and I told her stay as long as she had a mind.
Wisha, she 'd an old apron on her in five minutes' time, an' took hold
wit' the wash, and wint singing like a blackbird out in the yard at the
line. 'Sit down, Aunty!' says she; 'you 're not so light-stepping as
me, an' I 'll tell you all the news from home; an' I 'll get the
dinner, too, when I 've done this,' says she. Wisha, but she's the
good cook for such a young thing; 't is Bridget says it as well as
meself. She made a stew that day; 't was like the ones her mother made
Sundays, she said, if they 'd be lucky in getting a piece of meat; 't
was a fine-tasting stew, too; she thinks we 're all rich over here.
'So we are, me dear!' says I, 'but every one don't have the sinse to
believe it.'"

"Spake for yourselves!" exclaimed one of the listeners. "You do be
like Father Ross, always pr'achin' that we 'd best want less than want
more. He takes honest folks for fools, poor man," said Mary Ann Duffy,
who had no patience at any time with new ideas.

"An' so she wint on the next two or free days," said Patrick
approvingly, without noticing the interruption, "being as quiet as you
'd ask, and being said by her aunt in everything; and she would n't let
on she was homesick, but she 'd no tark of anything but the folks at
Dunkinny. When there 'd be nothing to do for an hour she 'd slip out
and be gone wit' herself for a little while, and be very still comin'
in. Last Thursday, after supper, she ran out; but by the time I 'd
done me pipe, back she came flying in at the door.

"'I 'm going off to a place called Birch Plains to-morrow morning, on
the nine, Uncle Patsy,' says she; 'do you know where it is?' says she.
'I do,' says I; ''t was not far from it I broke me leg wit' the dam'
derrick. 'T was to Jerry Ryan's house they took me first. There's no
town there at all; 't is the only house in it; Ryan 's the switchman.'

"'Would they take me to lodge for a while, I d' know?' says she, havin'
great business. 'What 'd ye be afther in a place like that?' says I.
'Ryan 's got girls himse