h, when in the middle of the night, near
to the time of my going away, I was awakened by a bad fit of my mother's
coughing, and heard her say to herself in the deep breathing that
followed:

"My poor child! What is to become of her?"

Nevertheless all went well down to the day of my departure. It had been
arranged that I was to sail to Liverpool by the first of the two daily
steamers, and without any awakening I leapt out of bed at the first
sign of daylight. So great was my delight that I began to dance in my
nightdress to an invisible skipping rope, forgetting my father, who
always rose at dawn and was at breakfast in the room below.

My mother and I breakfasted in bed, and then there was great commotion.
It chiefly consisted for me in putting on my new clothes, including my
furs, and then turning round and round on tiptoe and smiling at myself
in a mirror. I was doing this while my mother was telling me to write to
her as often as I was allowed, and while she knelt at her prayer stool,
which she used as a desk, to make a copy of the address for my letters.

Then I noticed that the first line of her superscription "Mrs. Daniel
O'Neill" was blurred by the tears that were dropping from her eyes, and
my throat began to hurt me dreadfully. But I remembered what Father Dan
had told me to do, so I said:

"Never mind, mammy. Don't worry--I'll be home for the holidays."

Soon afterwards we heard the carriage wheels passing under the window,
and then Father Dan came up in a white knitted muffler, and with a funny
bag which he used for his surplice at funerals, and said, through a
little cloud of white breath, that everything was ready.

I saw that my mother was turning round and taking out her
pocket-handkerchief, and I was snuffling a little myself, but at a sign
from Father Dan, who was standing at the threshold. I squeezed back the
water in my eyes and cried:

"Good-bye mammy. I'll be back for Christmas," and then darted across to
the door.

I was just passing through it when I heard my mother say "Mary" in a
strange low voice, and I turned and saw her--I can see her still--with
her beautiful pale face all broken up, and her arms held out to me.

Then I rushed back to her, and she clasped me to her breast crying,
"Mally veen! My Mally veen!" and I could feel her heart beating through
her dress and hear the husky rattle in her throat, and then all our poor
little game of make-believe broke down utterly.

At the