anybody particular. It'll
all come right somehow, and we'll soon see the roses back in your
cheek, and the smile on your lips, and the light in your eyes. Don't
mind what I said."

"But what's the use talkin' of it at all?" said Peter. "You've no
money and we've less. We might as well be talkin' of goin' to the moon
as to the States."

The old woman did not seem to be paying any attention to what the
others were saying, and now nobody at all said anything for a little
while. Then Mrs. O'Brien began: "John and Kitty, I think sometimes
it's true I'm getting old and foolish. I don't know what has made me
talk the way I have to-night I've seen it coming--oh, I've seen it
coming all along--yes, longer than any one of you has seen it--and I
knew I couldn't stand in the way. And yet to be leaving the old
places--the old fields and hills and paths--the old streams and trees
and rocks--the old places where your father and I walked and sat and
talked so often together, where you were born and where he lies--I
couldn't bear to think of it. It's old and weak and foolish I'm
getting, and I couldn't bear to think of it. And so I've tried to make
you think of other things and to make you think that it would be
better somehow, some time. Maybe I've said too much, and maybe I've
kept you from going when you ought to have gone, but you'll know that
it was because I couldn't bear to think of leaving all the dear
places, and you'll forgive me; John and Kitty, you'll forgive me. I
can say no more. If I couldn't think of it, yet I must do it. It is
right that we should go, and we will go."

"And why should you be talkin' that way, mother?" said John. "Was it
what you said that kept us from goin' to the States long ago? Sure, if
you had said nothing at all, we hadn't the money to go, and so what
difference was it what you said?"

"Listen to me, John," said his mother; "it was all through me that you
didn't leave this land of sorrow long ago. It was because it had been
a land of joy as well to me that we all stayed here; and now, since
you're sure that it's right and best for you to go, it's not the want
of money that shall stand in your way. It's yourself knows, John, that
your father--Heaven be his bed!--was always the careful and the saving
man, and I always tried to help him the best I could. The times got a
little better with us, as you know, after those worst ones in '47 and
'48, and we saved a little again--it was not much, but it