"I only stayed," said Madge, "to wish you goodbye, and thank you for your kindness. When they who should have had some pity on me turned me out, you took me in!"
"You are heartily welcome," said Mrs. Buckley. "Cannot I do more for you? Do you want money? I fear you must!"
"None, I thank you kindly," she replied; "that would break the spell. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" said Mrs. Buckley.
Madge stood in front of the door and raised her hand.
"The blessing of God," she said, "shall be upon the house of the Buckleys, and more especially upon you and your husband, and the boy that is sleeping inside. He shall be a brave and a good man, and his wife shall be the fairest and best in the country side. Your kine shall cover the plains until no man can number them, and your sheep shall be like the sands of the sea. When misfortune and death and murder fall upon your neighbours, you shall stand between the dead and the living, and the troubles that pass over your heads shall be like the shadow of the light clouds that fly across the moor on a sunny day. And when in your ripe and honoured old age you shall sit with your husband, in a garden of your own planting, in the lands far away, and see your grandchildren playing around you, you shall think of the words of the wild, lost gipsy woman, who gave you her best blessing before she went away and was seen no more."
Mrs. Buckley tried to say "Amen," but found herself crying. Something there was in that poor creature, homeless, penniless, friendless, that made her heart like wax. She watched her as she strode down the path, and afterwards looked for her re-appearing on a high exposed part of the road, a quarter of a mile off, thinking she would take that way. But she waited long, and never again saw that stern, tall figure, save in her dreams.
She turned at last, and one of the maids stood beside her.
"Oh, missis," she said, "you're a lucky woman today. There's some in this parish would have paid a hundred pounds for such a fortune as that from her. It'll come true,—you will see!"
"I hope it may, you silly girl," said Mrs. Buckley; and then she went in and knelt beside her sleeping boy, and prayed that the blessing of the gipsy woman might be fulfilled.