der of the great hill; they
could hear the lambs bleat and the tinkling of the sheep-bells that
sweet May morning. From the lower hillside came the sound of voices.
The neighbors had seen them pass, and were calling to each other across
the fields. Oh, it was home, home! the sight of it, and the smell of
the salt air and the flowers in the bog, the look of the early white
mushrooms in the sod, and the song of the larks overhead and the
blackbirds in the hedges! Poor Ireland was gay-hearted in the spring
weather, and Nora was there at last. "Oh, thank God, we 're safe
home!" she said again. "Look, here's the Wishing Brook; d' ye mind
it?" she called back to the old man.

"I mind everything the day, no fear for me," said Patrick Quin.

The great hillside before them sloped up to meet the blue sky, the
golden gorse spread its splendid tapestry against the green pasture.
There was the tiny house, the one house in Ireland for Nora; its very
windows watched her coming. A whiff of turf-smoke flickered above the
chimney, the white walls were as white as the clouds above; there was a
figure moving about inside the house, and a bent little woman in her
white frilled cap and a small red shawl pinned about her shoulders came
and stood in the door.

"Oh, me mother, me mother!" cried Nora; then she dropped the baby in
the soft grass, and flew like a pigeon up the hill and into her
mother's arms.

VI.

The gossoon was equal to emergencies; he put down his heavier burden of
goods and picked up the baby, lest it might run back to America. "God
be praised, what's this coming afther ye?" exclaimed the mother, while
Nora, weeping for joy, ran past her into the house. "Oh, God bless the
shild that I thought I 'd never see. Oh!" and she looked again at the
stranger, the breathless old man with the thorn stick, whom everybody
had left behind. "'T is me brother Patsy! Oh, me heart's broke wit'
joy!" and she fell on her knees among the daisies.

"It's meself, then!" said Mr. Patrick Quin. "How are ye the day, Mary?
I always t'ought I 'd see home again, but 't was Nora enticed me now.
Johnny O'Callahan's a good son to ye; he 'd liked well to come with us,
but he gets short l'ave on the Road, and he has a fine, steady job; he
'll see after the business, too, while we 're gone; no, I could n't let
the two childer cross the say alone. Coom now, don't be sayin' anny
more prayers; sure, we 'll be sayin' them together in the ol