In the long afternoons, which sometimes began for her before twelve o’clock if she got expeditiously through her “readyin’ up,” the lag-foot hours seemed dismally empty, and during them she was especially prone to crown her sorrow with memories of her happier things: of the time when she need only slip out at her own door, and in at Mrs. Egan’s or Mrs. O’Keefe’s, if she wanted plenty of company, and when “themselves or the childer would be runnin’ in to her every minute of the day. If there was nothin’ else,” she mused, “the crathurs of hins and chuckens foostherin’ about the place looked a thrifle gay like.” Mrs. Martin herself kept no fowl, for “how would she get hobblin’ after them, if they tuk to strayin’ on her?” And she had attempted vainly to adopt the O’Keefes’ cat, which became unsettled in its mind upon the departure of its late owners, and at length roamed desperately away into unknown regions. Thus, nowadays, when the little old woman gazed listlessly over her half-door, all she could see was the quiet green bank across the road, with perhaps a dingy white sheep inanely nibbling atop. Then she would sometimes feel at first as if it were only a dreary Sunday or holiday, when the silence and solitude being caused by her neighbours’ absence at Mass would end on their return; but presently she would be stricken with the recollection that they were irrevocably gone, and that, watch as long as she might, she would never more hear their voices grow louder and clearer coming up the lane, preluding their appearance anon, a cheerful company, round the turn fast by.

One afternoon, however, her hopeless lookout did result in something pleasant. It was a Christmas Eve, and dull, chilly weather, overclouded with fleecy grey, thinned here and there into silvery dimness, a sheath from which a fiery rose might flush at sun-setting. She was just turning away with a shiver from the draughty door when she caught a glimpse of Father Gilmore’s long coat flapping between the banks. It was a welcome sight, which she had missed through six tedious months and more, for his Reverence, after a severe illness in the spring, had been somehow provided with funds to go seek lost health abroad, and had fared southward upon that quest. His travels, indeed, seemed to have been inconceivably extended. When to Mrs. Martin’s question: “And was your Riverence, now, anythin’ as far as Paris?” he replied, with a touch of triumph, “A long step further,” her imagination recoiled from so wild a track, and she could only stare at him as if astonished to see no visible traces of such wanderings, except maybe a slight tawny tinge like the rust-wraith of many hot sunbeams, superimposed on the normal greenish hue of his well-worn cloth.

Father Gilmore spared her half-an-hour of delightful discourse, to which his own foreign adventures and the home news from Clonmacreevagh gave an animated flow. But when Mrs. Martin’s turn came to give an account of herself the conversation fell into a minor key. And the theme that ran through all her despondence was the plaint that she did be terrible short of company. “She had middlin’ good health, barrin’ the rheumatiz, thanks be to God, but sure she did be cruel lonesome. It’s lost she was there, wid niver sight nor sound of man or mortal from mornin’ till night; she might as well be an ould wether left fallen in a gripe for all she seen or heard of anythin.’ ’Deed now ’twas just the one way wid her as wid the waft of smoke there up her ould chimney that went fluttherin’ out on the width of the air, and sorra another breath anywheres nigh it, since ever the crathurs quit. Many a mornin’ she’d scarce the heart to be puttin’ a light to her fire at all, she was that fretted, ay bedad, she was so.”

To these laments Father Gilmore listened with a patience made more difficult by his consciousness that he could suggest no remedy of the practically appropriate sort which is to general consolatory propositions as a close and cordial hearth-glow to the remote and mocking sunshine of a wintry sky. If you want to warm your cold hands those league-long flames some millions of miles away are so much less immediately to the purpose than your neighbouring screed of ruddy coals. This drifted mistily through his mind, as for lack of a more satisfactory remark he said: “You wouldn’t think of moving into the town?” But he was well aware that he had spoken foolishly, even before Mrs. Martin answered: “Ah, your Riverence, how would I, so to spake, be runnin’ me head out from under me penny of rint?” For her husband, a gamekeeper up at the Big House of the parish, had lost his life by accident at a shooting party, and the family had pensioned off his widow with five weekly shillings and her cabin rent free.

“True for you, Mrs. Martin,” said Father Gilmore, standing up. “But sure, lonely or no, we’re all under the protection of God Almighty, and I’ve brought you a little ornament for your room.” Mrs. Martin’s eyes