e humble room which for the Lynch's, served as parlor, dining-room and
kitchen. Now its bareness lay wrapped in a kindly shadow through which
glinted diamond sparks from much-scrubbed tin. "It's _nice_--" Beryl
meditated. She loved this hour, she loved the singing tea-kettle and the
smell of strong soap and her mother's face in the lamplight, with all
the loud noises of the street hushed, and the ugliness outside hidden by
the closed door, against the paintless boards of which had been nailed a
flaming poster inviting the nation's youth to join the Navy.

"But maybe this home'll be--too different," she finished.

The mother's eyes grew moist with a quick tenderness. Her Beryl, with
this wonder of a dolly in her arms! Her mind flashed over the last
Christmas and the one before that when Beryl had asked Santa Claus for a
"real doll" and had cried on Christmas morning because the cheap little
bit of dolldom which the mother had bought out of her meagre savings
would not open or shut its eyes. And now--the impudent heart of the
blessed child worrying that the home wasn't good enough for the likes of
the doll!

"It's a good home for her where it's loving you are to her. It's the
heart and not the gold that counts. And who knows--maybe it's a bit of
luck the dolly'll be a-bringing."

As though a word of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a
face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as
she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of
chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that
never failed to brighten her deepest gloom. Did she not staunchly
believe that someday by a turn of good fortune she and her Danny would
know the America and the good things of which they had dreamed, sitting
in the gloaming of their Ireland, their lover's hands close clasped? But
for that hope why would they have left their dear hillsides with the
homely life and the kindly neighbors and good Father Murphy who had
taught her from his own dog-eared books because she was eager and quick
to learn? Through the fourteen years since they had come to America
those girl-and-boy dreams had gone sadly astray, but the little wife
still clung to the faith that they'd have the good things sometime, her
Danny would get a better job and if he didn't there was young Dale,
always at the head of his class in school and even the baby Beryl, as
quick as anything to pick out words fro