to grow at all.” And about the same time they discovered that the widdy’s house was “no such great way to spake of onst you turned down the lane; you could tramp it aisy in a little betther than ten minutes or so from the corner, if you had a mind.” In the days which followed numbers of them were so minded, vastly to the comfort of the little old woman, who welcomed them with unbounded joy, and as many cups of tea as she could by any means compass. She harboured no resentment on the score of their long and dreary defection. That was all ended at last. For as the spring weather mellowed into April, and the imprisoned creeper daily flung out profuser sprays and tendril-spirals, the fame of it spread far and wide over the townlands, until its habitation became quite a place of resort. So many people now turned down the lane that they soon wore a track, which you could see distinctly if you looked along a stretch of its grass-grown surface. The Doctor came, and the District-Inspector, and the Protestant clergyman. Even “higher-up Quality” arrived, and satin-coated steeds have been seen tossing their silver- crested blinkers at the little old woman’s door under the supervision of grooms resplendently polished. Seldom or never in these times had she to weary through a long, lonely afternoon; more often she held a crowded reception, when the clack of tongues and clatter of thick-rimmed delft cups sounded cheerily in her kitchen. They scared away all her fears of tramps and ghosts; and she no longer ended her Rosary with mournful petitions for company. Her company had duly assembled.

Towards the beginning of June a fresh development of the marvel occurred, for then the creeper blossomed. Thickly clustered bunches of pale green buds broke swiftly into fantastic curven-throated bugles of a clear-glowing apricot colour, which made gleams as of beaded light in the dark places where they unsheathed themselves. Mrs. Martin said it looked “like as if somebody was after tyin’ knots in a ray of the sunshine.” Just at this crisis a professor from one of the Queen’s Colleges, chancing to be in the neighbourhood, was brought to pronounce upon the case. As behoved a learned man, he gave it an ugly name, which we may ignorantly forget, and he said that it belonged to a species of plants, rare even in its far off oriental habitat, but totally unexampled beneath these northern skies.

However, soon after he had gone, leaving no luminous wake behind him, the little old woman made a brilliant discovery. It was on that same evening, while she was drinking tea with a few of her good gossips, for whom she entertained as strong a regard as did Madam Noah in the ancient morality. Naturally enough, the “quareness” and general inscrutability of the strange creeper had been under discussion, when Mrs. Martin suddenly said: “Ah! women, dear, what talk have we then at all, at all? Sure now it’s come clear in me own mind this instaint minute that whatever it may be, ’twas the Virgin herself, Heaven bless her, set it growin’ there wid itself, just of a purpose to be fetchin’ me in me company. For, signs on it, ne’er a day there is since folk heard tell of it, that there doesn’t be some comin’ and goin’ about the place, and makin’ it plisant and gay-like. And sorra a thing else is it brought them, except to be seein’ the quare new plant; aye, bedad, ’twas them twistin’ boughs on it streeled the whole lot along in here to me, same as if they were a manner of landin’-net. And sure wasn’t I moidherin’ her every night of me life to be sendin’ me some company? ’Deed was I so, and be the same token ne’er a word of thanks have I thought of sayin’ to her, after her takin’ the throuble to conthrive it that-away, more shame for me, but I was that tuk up wid it all.”

“Thrue for you, Mrs. Martin, ma’am,” said Mrs. Brennan; “aiten bread’s soon forgotten, as the sayin’ is. Howane’er there’s nothin’ liker than that that was the way of it as you say. What else ’ud be apt to make it go clamber all round the image of her, as if ’twas her belongin’? And didn’t the gintleman tell you ’twas nothin’ that grows be rights next or nigh this counthry? Ah, for sure ’tis from far enough it’s come, if ’twas the like of Them sent it. And a kind thought it was too, glory be to God.”

Mrs. Martin’s theory gained almost unanimous approval, and was generally accepted by her neighbours, Father Gilmore sanctioning it with a half wistful assent. It had the effect of enhancing the interest taken in the flourishing creeper and the little withered dame, the pledge and recipient of so signal a favour from those who are still the recognised powers that be in such places as Clonmacreevagh. The idea gave a tinge of religious sentiment to the soon established custom of visiting Mrs. Martin, and on the weekly market days you often might have supposed some kind of miniature pattern in progress at her cabin, so great was the resort thither of shawled and cloaked and big-basketed country-wives. These