“Well?” said she, pertly, as if interrogating his opinion of her—“well?”
But his emotion was too strong for words, and the heavy tears coursed after each other down his wrinkled cheeks.
“It’s harder for me to leave you, Kitty, darlin’, than I thought it would be, and I know, too, I’ll feel it worse when I go back.”
“No you won’t, grandfather,” said she, caressingly. “You’ll be thinking of me and the fine life I’m leadin’ here, and the fine times that’s before me.”
“Do you think so, honey?” asked he, in a half-sobbing tone—“do you think so?”
“I know it, grandfather—I know it, so don’t cry any more; and, whenever your heart is low, just think of what’s coming. That’s what I do. I always begin to think of what’s coming!”
“And when that time comes, Kitty ‘Alannah,’ will you ever renumber yer ould grandfather, who won’t be to ‘the fore’ to see it?”
“And why won’t he be?”
“Because, darlin’, I’m nigh eighty years of age, and I can’t expect to see above a year or two, at farthest. Come here, and give me a kiss, ma Cushleen! and cut off a bit of your hair for me to have as a keepsake, and put next my heart in my coffin.”
“No, grandfather; take this, it will do as well”—and she handed him the little golden trinket—“for I can’t cut my hair, after hearin’ the gentlemen sayin’ how beautiful it is!”