lrooms again would almost be too much for them; but this
consideration was now too late, and when they got to the corner of
the gate, they found that there was a crowd to receive them. "Mary,
I must go back," said Emmeline, when she first saw them; but Aunt
Letty, who was with them, stepped forward, and they soon found
themselves in the schoolroom.

"We have come to say good-bye to you all," said Aunt Letty, trying to
begin a speech.

"May the heavens be yer bed then, the lot of yez, for ye war always
good to the poor. May the Blessed Virgin guide and protect ye
wherever ye be;"--a blessing against which Aunt Letty at once entered
a little inward protest, perturbed though she was in spirit. "May the
heavens rain glory on yer heads, for ye war always the finest family
that war ever in the county Cork!"

"You know, I dare say, that we are going to leave you," continued
Aunt Letty.

"We knows it, we knows it; sorrow come to them as did it all. Faix,
an' there'll niver be any good in the counthry, at all at all, when
you're gone, Miss Emmeline; an' what'll we do at all for the want
of yez, and when shall we see the likes of yez? Eh, Miss Letty, but
there'll be sore eyes weeping for ye; and for her leddyship too; may
the Lord Almighty bless her, and presarve her, and carry her sowl
to glory when she dies; for av there war iver a good woman on God's
'arth, that woman is Leddy Fitzgerald."

And then Aunt Letty found that there was no necessity for her to
continue her speech, and indeed no possibility of her doing so even
if she were so minded. The children began to wail and cry, and
the mothers also mixed loud sobbings with their loud prayers; and
Emmeline and Mary, dissolved in tears, sat themselves down, drawing
to them the youngest bairns and those whom they had loved the best,
kissing their sallow, famine-stricken, unwholesome faces, and weeping
over them with a love of which hitherto they had been hardly
conscious.

There was not much more in the way of speech possible to any of
them, for even Aunt Letty was far gone in tender wailing; and it
was wonderful to see the liberties that were taken even with that
venerable bonnet. The women had first of all taken hold of her hands
to kiss them, and had kissed her feet, and her garments, and her
shoulders, and then behind her back they had made crosses on her,
although they knew how dreadfully she would have raged had she caught
them polluting her by such doings; and th