you for them to be livin’ convenient alongside of me the way they was. Sure I know the roof’s quare and bad, and ’twas small blame to them they quit; but to see an odd sight of one, Lady jewel, if it wouldn’t go agin you to conthrive that much. Ah, darlint, supposin’ it was only a little ould poor ould wisp of a lone woman the same as meself, it’s proud I’d be to behould her; or if it was Crazy Christy, that does be talkin’ foolish, the crathur, troth, all’s one, the sound of the voice spakin’ ’ud be plisant to hear, no matter what ould blathers he tuk the notion to be gabbin’. For it’s unnathural still and quiet here these times, Lady dear, wid sorra a livin’ sowl comin’ next or nigh me ever. But sure ’tis the lonesome house you kep’ yourself, Lady dear, one while, and belike you’ll remimber it yet, for all you’ve got back your company agin, ay have you, glory be to God. And wid the help of the Lord it’s slippin’ over I’ll be meself one of these days to them that’s gone from me, and no fear but I’ll have the grand company then. Only it’s the time between whiles does be woeful long and dhrary-like. So if you wouldn’t think too bad, Lady honey, to send me the sight of a crathur—.” Thus she rambled on piteously, but in answer seemed to come nothing more companionable than the wide-winged gusts of the night wind roving the great grass lands at the back of her cabin where the tiny window-slit peered out. And day followed day with not a step or voice.

It was on a mild-aired morning midway in February that Mrs. Martin, when dusting her precious image, noticed a vivid green speck dotted on the grey wall near its foot. Looking closer, she saw two atoms of leaves pricked up through the cracked mud, belonging no doubt to some seedling weed, she thought, and she would have brushed them away had not some other trifle just then diverted her attention. A few days afterwards, when she happened again to take heed of them, they were crowning a slender shoot, fledged with other delicate leaflets, film-frail, and semi-transparent. She thought the little spray looked pretty and “off the common,” and next morning she was pleased to see that it had crept a bit further on the dark wall. Thence-forward she watched its growth with a deep interest. It throve apace. Every day showed a fresh unfolding of leaf-buds and lengthening of stalks, which seemed to climb with a purpose, as if moved by a living will. Their goal was indeed the narrow chink which let a wedge of light slant in just above the Virgin’s glistering head, and in making for it they caught boldly at anything that offered tendril hold. One morning the little old woman untwisted a coil of fairy cordage that was enringing the Virgin’s feet, and often after this she had to disengage the figure from the first beginnings of wreathings and windings amongst which it would speedily have disappeared. As it was, they soon filled up the niche with a tangled greenery, and overflowed in long trails and festoons drooping to the floor. Never was there a carven shrine wrought with such intricate traceries. When the early-rising sun struck in through them, the floor was flecked with the wavering shadows of the small fine leaves, whilst they themselves took a translucent vividness of hue that might have been drawn from wells of liquid chrysoprase and beryl; and amid the bower of golden-green steadily glimmered the white-stoled Virgin.

All this was the work of but a few weeks, scarcely stepping over the threshold of Spring. The little old woman watched its progress with pleasure and astonishment. She had never, she said, seen the like of any such a thing before. As the wonder grew, she felt more and more keenly the lack of someone to whom she might impart it. She did try to tell Tim Doran, but the opposite turf-bank would not have received the intelligence much more blankly, and could not have grunted with such discouraging indifference in reply. The man, she thought bitterly, was “as stupid as an ould blind cow. If you tould him you had the Queen of Agypt and the Lord Lieutenant sittin’ in there colloguin’ be the fire, he wouldn’t throuble himself to take a look in at the door.” However, no less stolid listeners were forthcoming. Father Gilmore was paying the penalty for his ill-timed return to northern climes in a series of bad colds, and the other neighbours never set foot up the lane.

At last she bethought her of communicating with Father Gilmore by a letter, which Tim Doran might carry, and she laboriously composed one in time for his next weekly call. Whether he would deliver it or not was a point which his manner left doubtful; but he actually did so. Mrs. Martin’s letter was “scrawmed” on a bit of coarse brown paper, which, when I saw it some time ago, still smelt so pungently of tea, that I think it must have wrapped one of her parcels. The writing on it ran as follows: