was had been rubbed smooth and spotless, and the few dishes that
there were fairly shone. The floor was as carefully swept as if the
Queen were expected.

The three persons who lived in the cabin had eaten their supper of
potatoes and milk and were sitting before the turf fire. It had been a
poor supper, yet a little of it that was left--a few potatoes, a
little milk, and a dish of fresh water--had been placed on a bench
outside the door. There was no light except that of the fire. There
was no need of any other, and there was no money to spend on candles
that were not needed.

The three who sat before the fire, and needed no other light, were a
young man, a young woman, and an elderly woman. She did not like to be
called old, for she said, and quite truly, that sixty was not old for
anybody who felt as young as she did. This woman was Mrs. O'Brien. The
young man was her son, John, and the young-woman was his wife, Kitty.

"Kitty," said John, "it's not well you're lookin' to-night. Are ye
feelin' anyways worse than common?"

"It's only a bit tired I am," said Kitty, "wid the work I was afther
doin' all day. I'll be as well as ever in the morning."

"It's a shame, that it is," said John, "that ye have to be workin'
that way, day afther day, and you not sthrong at all. It's a shame
that I can't do enough for the three of us, and the more, maybe, that
there'll be, but you must be at it, too, all the time."

"What nonsinse ye're talkin', John," Kitty answered. "What would I be
doin', settin' up here like a lady, doin' nothin', and you and mother
workin' away like you was my servants? Did you think it was a duchess
or the daughter of the Lord Lieutenant ye was marryin', that ye're
talkin' that way?"

"And it'll be worse a long time before it's betther," John went on.
"Wid the three of us workin' all the time, we just barely get along.
And it's the end of the summer now. What we'll do at all when the
winter comes, I dunno."

The older woman listened to the others and said nothing. Perhaps she
had heard such talk as this so many times that she did not care to
join in it again, or perhaps she was waiting to be asked to speak. For
it was to her that these younger people always turned when they were
in trouble. It was her advice and her opinion that they always asked
when they felt that they needed a better opinion than their own. The
three sat silent now for a time, and then John broke out, as if the
talk had been goi