They found her as usual, seated before her fire,
for even in the summer she seemed to enjoy its warmth, on that bleak
hill's side. What with chairs, benches, and stools, a log of wood, a
pile of turf, and a boulder which Charley rolled in, all found seats.
Anna had to exercise a little diplomacy to induce Moggy to begin before
so formidable an audience. The poor creature was inclined to chide Tom
for not having come up oftener to see her, when she discovered that he
was going away.

"I took a liking to your face and your manner my son, from the first
minute my eyes fell on you; and it would have been a slight thing for ye
to have come up and cheered the old woman's well-nigh withered heart,"
she observed, in a more testy tone than she was accustomed to use.

"Well, mother, don't blame me," answered Tom. "Many's the time I've
come round this way, but feared to intrude, or I would have come in, and
I'll not now miss the chance another time."

This promise seemed to satisfy Moggy, and after a little hesitation she
began.

"Once I was blithe and gay as any of you dear young people. I had a
home, and parents, and sisters. There were three of us, as pretty and
as merry as any to be found in the country around. We merrily grew up
into happy maidens, as merry as could be found, and the glass told us,
even if others had been silent, that we were as pretty too. We sang and
laughed from morn till night, and, alack, were somewhat thoughtless too;
but we were not idle. Our parents had a farm, and we helped our mother
in the dairy, and there was plenty of work for us. It was a pleasant
life. We were up with the lark and to bed in summer with the sun, and
in winter we sat by the fire when the cows were housed and the milk was
set in the pans, and all our out-door work was done, and knitted or
spun, or plied our needles, and chatted and sung; and guests came in,
and some of them came to woo; and we thought not of the morrow, and
taught ourselves to believe that the pleasant life we led would never
have an end. Ah! we were foolish--like the foolish virgins who had no
oil for their lamps, as all are foolish who think only of the present,
and prepare not for the future. Bad times were in store for us, such as
all farmers must be ready to encounter. Storms injured the crops, and
disease attacked our cattle; a fire broke out in the farm buildings; and
the end was that father had to throw up the farm, to sell his remaining
s