“Thin they are sent up to the Almshouse, and after that bound out; if they happen to be killing purty like this one, maybe some rich gintleman or lady up and adopts ’em and makes a lord of ’em entirely. Some day you and I will see them blue eyes a-looking at us through a carriage-windy, and I’ll be bound he’ll bow and smile as if we were the real quality itself.”
Catharine became very thoughtful during this prophecy, and turned her eyes away from the child, as if its innocent face gave her pain.
“Niver mind,” interposed her hostess, interpreting her look with that subtile magnetism with which one true womanly heart reads another.
“A great many things may happen in two years, with the blessings of the saints, so don’t be getting down-hearted; there’s a God above all!”
“I know it,” answered Catharine, gazing with sad tenderness on the child; “but it makes my heart ache to think what may become of this poor baby.”
“There now, hand it over, and go to your bed with the childer; it’s gettin’ down in the mouth ye are, and all for not eatin’ a hearty male whin ye had it to the fore,” exclaimed Mary Margaret, depositing her offspring by its sleeping father, and reaching out her arms for the other child. “There, there, go yer ways now; just push the childer aisy a one side, an’ make yerself contint on half their straw bed on the floor, and a comfortable bed may ye find it.”
Catharine arose to obey this hospitable command, but Mary Margaret called her back.
“See here; isn’t it as like the holy cross now as two paes?” she said, putting the soft hair back from the baby’s temple, and revealing a crimson mark that really had a cruciform appearance, small and delicate as it was.
“Isn’t he born to be a saint now!” exclaimed the Irish woman, exultingly.
“Or a martyr, perhaps,” said Catharine; and she walked sadly into the little room pointed out by her hostess.