"Oh, me darlin'—light of me eyes that you are—but where's the good when the boy don't wish it himself? He said to me only yesterday, 'Me girl,' said he, 'it aint the will of the Vargen that you and me should wed this year, nor maybe next. We must put it off for a bit longer.' I'm close on sixty, Miss Bridget, and Pat is sixty-two, and it seems as if we might settle it now, but he don't see it. He says it was the will of the Vargen to lay him on his back and that there must be no coorting nor marrying until he's round on his feet again. I am about tired of waiting, Miss Bridget; for, though I aint to say old, I aint none so young nayther."
"But you have a lot of life left in you still, Norah," said Bridget. "I'll go and talk to Pat to-morrow, and we'll soon put things right. I was so dreadfully sorry to hear that he was hurt. And did you get my letter that I wrote to you from school?"
"To be sure, darlin'! and why wouldn't I? and it's framed up in Pat's cottage now, and we both looks at it after we has said our beads each night. It was a moighty foine letter, Miss Biddy! Pat and me said that you was getting a sight of larning at that foreign school."
"And did you get the money I sent you, Norah? I sent you and Pat two whole pounds in a postal order. I was so glad I had it to give you. Two pounds means a lot of money to an Irish boy and girl. Weren't you glad when you saw it, Norah? Didn't it make you and Pat almost forget about the accident and the pain?"
"Oh, Miss Bridget, alanna!" Norah's deep-set, good-natured, and yet cunning eyes were raised in almost fear to the young girl's face. "Miss Bridget, alanna, there worn't never a stiver in the letter. No, as sure as I'm standing here; not so much as a brass bawbee, let alone gold. Oh, alanna, someone must have shtole the beautiful money. Oh, to think of your sending it, and we never to get it; oh, worra, worra me!"
Bridget turned rather pale while Norah was speaking.
"I certainly sent you the money," she said. "Didn't I tell you so in the letter?"
Norah fumbled with her apron.
"Maybe you did, darlin'," she said evasively.
"But don't you know? It was principally to tell you about the money that I wrote."