such a thing again we might have to do what we did then."

"Ye died with the people then," she said, pausing with her hand on the
door-handle. "But sure, why would there be the fever? Isn't there as
fine a crop as ever was seen of potatoes? And Master Richard wouldn't
let you put a hair of your head in danger. I'm not sayin' there's
anything in the sickness. It's a sick time o' year. But if there was
anything you should keep away, Miss Bawn. There's lots to do it without
you. You're not looking too well now. Master Richard should be uneasy
for you."

I spoke to my godmother about Nora later in the day, keeping back her
secret, but only telling her that there were reasons which made her feel
she must go. She knew the girl, was interested in her, and as it
happened, one of her many friends had written to her that she wanted a
young maid to be with two little girls. The situation was in England.
Perhaps Nora would be satisfied if the Irish Sea lay between her and
Richard Dawson.

I was returning home in the afternoon of the next day. My lover was
restive over the loss of so much of my society. But the morning was
bright and cheerful, and I thought I would walk over to Araglin and lay
the matter before Nora.

It was a most delightful autumn day. There had been a hoar-frost in the
night and the dead leaves and twigs had a tracery of silver and
crackled under one's foot as one walked. It was a day for exhilaration
if one were happy, and, despite the load of care which hung heavy upon
me, I found myself walking less languidly than I had done of late. The
boughs were now all bare; and where one had only seen leaves one saw a
network of trees and branches against a blue sky, and beyond the trees
the Purple Hill, which is hidden from one on our tree-hung road so long
as the trees are in leaf. The little robins sang cheerfully in many
trees, and the air was so still that a beech-nut falling from the tree
made quite a great noise.

As I came down the hilly road to where the village smoked in its hollow,
I had an idea that a stillness lay upon it like the blue mists of autumn
that were over all the countryside. Araglin is usually the noisiest of
villages--cocks crowing, hens cackling, dogs barking, children shouting
at their play. But this morning it was silent.

Nora's uncle's house lay almost outside the village, quite at its
beginning. I thought I should find her there alone, but, as it happened,
when I was close to it, sh