"Ay, ay," the other woman said. "He's no sooner here than he's away. Tell me, dearie, all about yourself. Never mind him; maybe he's gone to get some tea or some fruit for you—he's an unselfish boy, a good, unselfish boy."
Ailleen looked into the open eyes, sightless and expressionless, and felt a twinge of pity for the lonely heart who spoke so fondly of her boy—the boy who had spoken of her to Ailleen, and said that she was ill-tempered, fretful, and worrying. She, guileless herself, had sympathized with him, never doubting that some truth existed in his words. Now she had seen the two together, had heard the abrupt manner of the son to the mother and the almost pleading gentleness of the mother to the son, and in a trice there had come a dual sense—attraction to the mother; repulsion from the son.
As she sat talking to her, looking out across the level, sun-scorched paddocks to the fringe of standing bush, with the purple loom of the distant ranges showing over the irregular tops of the gums as a bank of purplish cloud against the blue of the sky, and with the chromatic whistle of the magpies coming faint but clear through the still air—just a glimpse of the Australian scenery that grows so dear in its simplicity and colour—she was more and more attracted to the woman who had known so much of human suffering, and waited so long and so patiently in darkness which was more than solitude. The simple story of her life Ailleen told—saving any reference to the absent Tony—and the blind woman caught with swift sympathy at the fact that she was motherless, and might at any moment be fatherless also.
"And you have no relatives—no friends?" she asked gently.
"Oh, heaps of friends, but no relatives," the girl answered.
"And if—supposing you were left alone——"
"Well, I can work," Ailleen added, as the other paused.
"Ay, dearie; but you'd be lonely, and it's bad to be lonely when you're young."
"Then I'll come and take care of you," the girl answered, as she laughed lightly.
The woman turned her head quickly and held out her hand, as a smile, soft and gentle, rippled over her face, and almost overcame the fixed stare in the sightless eyes.