ressing tone,
placing her other hand over Ailleen's, "it's very kind of you to say
that, very kind of you. There's many a one said far worse and never
given a thought whether it hurt me or not. Come, sit ye down, dearie,
and tell me all about yourself. Willy, bring a chair."

But Willy, convoyed by Nellie, had passed out of sight and hearing.

"I will sit here," Ailleen exclaimed, as she sat on the top of the steps
leading to the ground from the verandah.

"Ay, ay," the other woman said. "He's no sooner here than he's away.
Tell me, dearie, all about yourself. Never mind him; maybe he's gone to
get some tea or some fruit for you--he's an unselfish boy, a good,
unselfish boy."

Ailleen looked into the open eyes, sightless and expressionless, and
felt a twinge of pity for the lonely heart who spoke so fondly of her
boy--the boy who had spoken of her to Ailleen, and said that she was
ill-tempered, fretful, and worrying. She, guileless herself, had
sympathized with him, never doubting that some truth existed in his
words. Now she had seen the two together, had heard the abrupt manner of
the son to the mother and the almost pleading gentleness of the mother
to the son, and in a trice there had come a dual sense--attraction to
the mother; repulsion from the son.

As she sat talking to her, looking out across the level, sun-scorched
paddocks to the fringe of standing bush, with the purple loom of the
distant ranges showing over the irregular tops of the gums as a bank of
purplish cloud against the blue of the sky, and with the chromatic
whistle of the magpies coming faint but clear through the still
air--just a glimpse of the Australian scenery that grows so dear in its
simplicity and colour--she was more and more attracted to the woman who
had known so much of human suffering, and waited so long and so
patiently in darkness which was more than solitude. The simple story of
her life Ailleen told--saving any reference to the absent Tony--and the
blind woman caught with swift sympathy at the fact that she was
motherless, and might at any moment be fatherless also.

"And you have no relatives--no friends?" she asked gently.

"Oh, heaps of friends, but no relatives," the girl answered.

"And if--supposing you were left alone----"

"Well, I can work," Ailleen added, as the other paused.

"Ay, dearie; but you'd be lonely, and it's bad to be lonely when you're
young."

"Then I'll come and take care of you," the girl answ