"Yes. You see, there's no one else to care. But there was once, and I 'm caring now—for her."
"For—her?"
"His mother."
"Oh-h!" It was a tender little cry, full of quick sympathy—the eyes of the Lady in Black were on the stone marked "Kathleen."
"It ain't as if I did n't know how she'd feel," muttered the gray-haired little woman musingly, as she patted her work into completion and turned toward the Lady in Black. "You see, I was nurse to the boy when it happened, and for years afterward I worked in the family; so I know. I saw the whole thing from the beginning, from the very day when the little boy here met with the accident."
"Accident!" It was a sob of anguished sympathy from Kathleen's mother.
"Yes. 'T was a runaway; and he did n't live two days."
"I know—I know!" choked the Lady in Black—yet she was not thinking of the boy and the runaway.
"Things stopped then for my mistress," resumed the little gray-haired woman, after a moment, "and that was the beginning of the end. She had a husband and a daughter, but they did n't count—not either of 'em. Nothin' counted but this little grave out here; and she came and spent hours over it, trimmin' it with flowers and talkin' to it."
The Lady in Black raised her head suddenly and threw a quick glance into the other's face; but the gray-haired woman's eyes were turned away, and after a moment she went on speaking.