u're that
kind, I got filled up like. It's the State of Oregon I'm thinkin' of, for
the man I crossed the say to marry is there, and now I don't know when we
shall ever see one another."

"Oregon's a long way off," said Angela. "I know that, though I've lived in
Europe most of my life. Only the other day I looked at it on the map."

"Have ye got that map by you, miss?"

"Yes. We'll find it presently, in this mass of books in my cabin trunk.
But I was going to say, though Oregon's ever so far West, the man you came
from Ireland to marry will surely send for you. Then how happy you'll be,
by and by."

"A long by and by, I'm afraid, miss."

"Oh, why? Isn't there money enough?" Angela began to plan how she might
make the course of true love run smooth; though in these days she was not
as rich as she had been.

"There was, to begin with," the girl answered. "You see, miss, he sent for
me to meet him in New York, and 'twas he paid me way over. He'd bought
land in Oregon, and irritated it, as they calls it--and was doin'
wonderful. The idea was he should meet me at the ship, and we'd get
married and go West, man and wife. But his partner cheated him out of his
eyes, and the trick only come out when I was on the water. So instead o'
findin' me Tim I found a letter. The poor boy's had to start all over
again; and I tuk service, waitin' till he can scrape up the money to fetch
me out."

"I may be going quite near Oregon myself before long," said Angela
impulsively. "Do you think you could learn to be my maid, and would you
like to go with me?"

"Like it!" the girl echoed, turning white and then red. "'Twould be
heaven. I'm not too happy here. The housekeeper's got a 'clow' on me. And
indade, I've done a bit of maidin' to a lady in the ould country. I'd work
early and late to please ye, miss!"

"I feel sure you would," Angela said. "But you know, if you're going to be
my maid, you must give up calling me 'miss,' for I am--Mrs. May."

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am. But 'twas because ye look so young,
it never entered me head ye could be married, and perhaps even a widow."

Angela did not speak, and at once the girl made sure that she had hit upon
the truth with her last words. The lovely lady was in black for her
husband, to whom she must have been married when almost a child. "My
name's Kate McGinnis, ma'am," she went quickly on, "and though I've got no
recommendations in writin', because I thought to take a hus