enny for a purchase. And so
unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks
went by--hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks
of sore pining for a morsel of heart food--before she was free of her
own conscience to go and take it.

Bridget told stories to Herbert--strange, nonsensical fables, to be
sure--stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by
hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash--yet
that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a
better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well,
almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles
always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe
out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce, and
cunning, and bad--the wolves, and foxes, and witches--trapped themselves
in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends.

"Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and
munching his candy.

"An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an'
me our lane for a minute?"

"Faith, an' I will that," said the boy--aping, ambitiously, the racy
Irish accent.

"Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country,
livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a
little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum
in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a
crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid
awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always
so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her
up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit
iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her
pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an'
he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a
ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came
a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin',
over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have
the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin
to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came
craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin
lived i