le dog had
wandered off on the long search for her lost daughter. She was too
illiterate to have faith in letters, even had she had the means of
writing and sending many. But she had faith in her own strong love, and
believed that her passionate instinct would guide her to her child.
Besides, foreign travel was no new thing to her, and she could speak
enough of French to explain the object of her journey, and had,
moreover, the advantage of being, from her faith, a welcome object of
charitable hospitality at many a distant convent. But the country
people round Starkey Manor-House knew nothing of all this. They
wondered what had become of her, in a torpid, lazy fashion, and then
left off thinking of her altogether. Several years passed. Both
Manor-House and cottage were deserted. The young Squire lived far away
under the direction of his guardians. There were inroads of wool and
corn into the sitting-rooms of the Hall; and there was some low talk,
from time to time, among the hinds and country people, whether it would
not be as well to break into old Bridget's cottage, and save such of
her goods as were left from the moth and rust which must be making sad
havoc. But this idea was always quenched by the recollection of her
strong character and passionate anger; and tales of her masterful
spirit, and vehement force of will, were whispered about, till the very
thought of offending her, by touching any article of hers, became
invested with a kind of horror: it was believed that, dead or alive,
she would not fail to avenge it.

Suddenly she came home; with as little noise or note of preparation as
she had departed. One day, some one noticed a thin, blue curl of smoke,
ascending from her chimney. Her door stood open to the noon-day sun;
and, ere many hours had elapsed, some one had seen an old
travel-and-sorrow-stained woman dipping her pitcher in the well; and
said, that the dark, solemn eyes that looked up at him were more like
Bridget Fitzgerald's than any one else's in this world; and yet, if it
were she, she looked as if she had been scorched in the flames of hell,
so brown, and scared, and fierce a creature did she seem. By-and-by
many saw her; and those who met her eye once cared not to be caught
looking at her again. She had got into the habit of perpetually talking
to herself; nay, more, answering herself, and varying her tones
according to the side she took at the moment. It was no wonder that
those who dared to lis