nding in the erectness of her figure.
She drooped again in a minute or two, and seemed looking for something
on the ground, as, with bent head, she turned off from the spot where I
gazed upon her, and was lost to my sight. I fancy I missed my way, and
made a round in spite of the landlord's directions; for by the time I
had reached Bridget's cottage she was there, with no semblance of
hurried walk or discomposure of any kind. The door was slightly ajar. I
knocked, and the majestic figure stood before me, silently awaiting the
explanation of my errand. Her teeth were all gone, so the nose and chin
were brought near together; the grey eyebrows were straight, and almost
hung over her deep, cavernous eyes, and the thick white hair lay in
silvery masses over the low, wide, wrinkled forehead. For a moment, I
stood uncertain how to shape my answer to the solemn questioning of her
silence.

'Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I believe?' She bowed her head in
assent.

'I have something to say to you. May I come in? I am unwilling to keep
you standing.'

'You cannot tire me,' she said, and at first she seemed inclined to
deny me the shelter of her roof. But the next moment--she had searched
the very soul in me with her eyes during that instant--she led me in,
and dropped the shadowing hood of her grey, draping cloak, which had
previously hid part of the character of her countenance. The cottage
was rude and bare enough. But before that picture of the Virgin, of
which I have made mention, there stood a little cup filled with fresh
primroses. While she paid her reverence to the Madonna, I understood
why she had been out seeking through the clumps of green in the
sheltered copse. Then she turned round, and bade me be seated. The
expression of her face, which all this time I was studying, was not
bad, as the stories of my last night's landlord had led me to expect;
it was a wild, stern, fierce, indomitable countenance, seamed and
scarred by agonies of solitary weeping; but it was neither cunning nor
malignant.

'My name is Bridget Fitzgerald,' said she, by way of opening our
conversation.

'And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald, of Knock-Mahon, near Kildoon, in
Ireland?'

A faint light came into the dark gloom of her eyes.

'He was.'

'May I ask if you had any children by him?'

The light in her eyes grew quick and red. She tried to speak, I could
see; but something rose in her throat, and choked her, and until she
could