"I seen a shop once!" exclaimed Moira. "There was things in the window. It was a thread-an'-needle shop, I think."
"There are all kinds in big cities," said Winifred; "and I can't make pictures of them either. But once I remember—I just seem to remember—a strange place. Perhaps it was the street of a city, with shining windows on either side. A gentleman had me by the hand; and presently he put me before him on a horse and we galloped away, and I never saw those things again."
I heard these artless confidences of the young girl in the pauses of my own discourse with the blind woman, who heard them, too, and sometimes interrupted our talk with: "D'ye hear that now, ma'am?" or, "The Lord love her, poor innocent!"
But though I smiled and paused for an instant at such moments, I did not allow myself to be turned away from the main object of my visit, and at last I burst boldly into the subject which was occupying my mind.
CHAPTER VI. THE SCHOOLMASTER.
When I mentioned the strange apparition which I had seen with Winifred on one of those mountain passes overlooking the Glen of the Dargle, I saw that Granny Meehan was troubled and that she strove to avoid the subject.
"Winifred seems very intelligent," I remarked.
"That she does," the old woman assented cordially. "Times there be when I'm afeard she knows too much."