"I didn't know you were here!" she muttered confusedly.
"Well, it doesn't matter, my dear," I replied. "You have shown nothing more than natural feeling at the prospect of parting with the scenes and friends of your childhood. But I want to tell you now in presence of Father Farley that you are free to stay or go. I shall not force you to accompany me; for perhaps, after all, you will be happier here than there."
"Ah, happiness is not the only object of a life!" Father Owen said quickly. "Why, even that little bird yonder has to give up his songs in the sunshine sometimes and go to work. He has to build his nest as a shelter for his family, and he has to find them food."
He paused, looking out of the window at the little workman gaily hopping about as if making repairs in his dwelling, and thus pointing the moral and adorning the tale. When the priest turned round again to look at Winifred, her face was pale but composed, and her tears were dried on the delicate kerchief she drew from the folds of her cloak.
"To my mind it seems clear," said the priest, "that this lady's presence here just now is providential; and that her offer to take you to America is most kind, as it is most advantageous."
Winifred threw at me a glance which was neither so grateful nor so friendly as it might have been; but she looked so charming, her eyes still misty with tears and her curls falling mutinously about her face, that I forgave her on the spot.
"And yet I came here to tell you, Father Owen, that I wouldn't go!" she cried impetuously.
"Oh, did you?" said Father Owen. "Then you came here also to be told that you must go."