at I could work enough to
make it so that it would be easier for you and for Kitty both? Could
one do enough for three?"

"It would be easier than here, maybe," was all that the old woman said
in answer to this. She had heard this talk of America many times
before, and she did not like it. She would rather believe, and make
others believe, that better times were coming for Ireland. She was not
so young as the others and not so ready to leave her old home, yet
lately she had seen how it was growing harder and harder to stay, and
there seemed to be little left of the good luck of which she boasted.

She was thinking of all this now, and John knew her thoughts, though
she did not speak them, and he said: "You always tell us that there's
betther times comin', mother, and I've learned to know that all you
say is true. She was sayin' it just before you came in, Pether. But
how can we believe in the betther times? They don't come. They get
worse and worse. How do we know they'll ever come?"

Again Mrs. O'Brien seemed lost in deep thought, or in a dream, just as
when, a little while before, she had told them of O'Donoghue. What she
told them now was a sort of answer to John's question, but perhaps
she told it quite as much to draw their thoughts away from America.
She was silent for a little while, and they all waited for her to
speak.

"Good times for Ireland there will be again," she said, "when Earl
Gerald comes back. It was hundreds of years ago that Earl Gerald lived
in his great castle of Mullaghmast. He was a strong warrior and he
fought many a good fight for his people against their foes. More than
that, he was powerful in magic. He could work mighty charms and he
could change himself into any form he liked.

"His wife knew that he could do this, but he had never shown himself
to her in any form but his own. She often begged him to let her see
what his magic could do, and to change himself to some other form for
her. But he knew there was danger in it, and he put her off with one
reason and another. But at last, she asked him so many times, he told
her that if she took any fright at all while he was in any form but
his own he could never live in the world again in his own form till
all the people of the country had passed away many times. 'I'ld not be
a fit wife for you,' she said, 'if I'ld be easily frightened.'

"'You might not be easily frightened,' he said, 'but you might have
great cause, and if you were onl