“I know, I know, colleen. Cry all you want to. It’s yer Uncle Barney that understands. It’s me as lost me ol’ mither, an’ so arter all, she niver can come to see the little home I had a-waitin’ for her here by the sea; but, dearie, it’s better off she is in the lovely land she’s gone to.” Then, almost shyly, he added: “But I didn’t come back alone, Rilly. ’Twas me mither’s dyin’ wish that I bring Molly O’Connell to be keepin’ the little cabin for me. Dry yer tears now, mavourneen, and come in an’ meet me Molly, and try to be lovin’ her, too, for yer ol’ Uncle Barney’s sake.”
He led the girl into the cabin and called to someone who was busy in the kitchen corner. Muriel decided at once that it would not be hard to love the Irish woman, who, though elderly, was as blooming as a late rose, with her ruddy cheeks and twinkling blue eyes that held in their merry depths eternal youth.
“Molly’s the wife I’ve been waitin’ for ever since she was a gal,” Uncle Barney said as he laid an arm lovingly on the shoulders over which a gay red and yellow plaid shawl was folded.
Then he told how they had been sweethearts when they were lad and lassie in the long, long ago, but that his Molly had married another, and that was why Barney had come to America to live, but he had always been faithful to his first love, and at last they were to be together through the sunset of life. “This little ol’ cabin’s a real home now, Rilly gal,” the old man said, “an’ it’s yer home, too, colleen, if ever yer needin’ it.”
* * * * * * * *
An hour later, when Muriel stood in Doctor Lem’s kitchen warming her fingers over the fire in the great old-fashioned stove, she said: “Brazilla, I hardly know which of your two surprises was the most wonderful. To think that dear, brave little Zoey is to have his chance and all because of that kind man, Doctor Winslow. I am sure that Zoeth Wixon will make us all proud of him, but weren’t you surprised when Uncle Barney came home with a wife?”
“I reckon I was. Nothin’ could surprise me more ’less ’twould be Doctor Lem’s comin’ home with a wife; but that’s not likely to happen, though I sure sartin wish it might.”
Just at that moment Muriel thought of something. She had noticed the night before that Doctor Winslow often had looked over the rose geranium at lovely Miss Gordon, and surely in his eyes there had been——
Her thoughts were interrupted with: “Rilly, ’sposin’ yo’ take in the platter o’ fried fish an’ tell Miss Gordon as everything’s dished up an’ ready.”