hat skirted the avenue, in which a very old
man had paused in the act of digging potatoes, and now stood in an
attitude of rigid salutation, a broken felt hat held above his head.

"Look, Larry! It's Pat Foley! Poor old Pat! Isn't it lovely the way
every one remembers?"

Her eyes filled with sudden tears, as they passed the last clump of
trees and came full upon the old white house; then, as the horse drew
up sharply under the well-remembered iron balcony, she gave a little
cry and threw the reins to Asshlin.

Hannah had opened the hall door, and stood broad-faced, honest, beaming
as of old.

"My darlin'!" she cried--"my darlin'!"

And in an instant, regardless of her dress and of the eyes of Asshlin
and Burke, Clodagh sprang to the ground and rushed into the arms that
had so often sheltered her.

At eight o'clock on the same evening, Clodagh, with Mick at her feet,
sat in a shabby leather arm-chair by the open window of the bedroom
that she had shared with Nance for so many years. Outside, the soft
beating of the sea against the rocks came to her ears with strange
familiarity; by her side stood a small table set out with a homely tea;
while in front of her, jealously watchful that she did justice to the
meal, stood Hannah.

"An' 'tis a millonaire they tells me the child is goin' to marry?" she
asked in one of her tentative, round-about questions. "Glory be to God!
an' she only out of the school!"

Clodagh glanced through the window at the golden evening sky.

"You married me before I had been to school, Hannah," she said, below
her breath.

The old shrewd light gleamed in Hannah's eyes. She moved awkwardly and
yet softly round the tea-table, and laid her broad hand on Clodagh's
shoulder.

"Many's the day I do be ponderin' on that match, Miss Clodagh," she
said earnestly. "The ways of God are dark; and what I done, I done for
the best."

Clodagh, touched by the deep solicitude of the voice, put her own
smooth hand over the old rough one.

"I'm sure God did everything as it should be done, Hannah,--because
it--it has all come right in the end."

Hannah's hand dropped from her shoulder in sudden excitement.

"Miss Clodagh!" she said breathlessly--"Miss Clodagh, is it a husband
you'll be thinkin' to take?"

Again Clodagh's gaze wandered across the sky, melting now from gold to
orange.

"There is a man who wants to take me for his wife, Hannah," she
corrected, very gently.

"An' you do be puttin'