“Very well indeed,” said Nora.
“Then it's I that am delighted to see yez, though see yez I can't. Oh, then, I hope that it's a long life and plenty you'll have before you, my sweet, dear, illigant young lady—a good bed to lie on, and plenty to eat and drink. If you has them, what else could ail yez? Good-by to yez; good-by to yez.”
Nora slipped a couple of pence into his hand.
“The blessings of the Vargin and all the Saints be on your head, miss. Oh! it's I that am glad to see yez. God's blessing on yez a thousand times.”
Nora took the old man's hand and wrung it. He raised the white little hand to his lips and kissed it.
“There now,” he said, “I have kissed yez; and these lips shan't see wather again for many a long day—that they shan't. I wouldn't wash off the taste of your hand, honey, for a bag of yellow gold.”
“What an extraordinary man!” said Molly. “Have you known him all your life?”
“Known him all my life!” said Nora. “Never laid eyes on him before; that's the way we always talk to one another. Oh, I can tell you we love each other here in Ireland.”
“It seems so,” answered Molly, in some astonishment. “Dear me! if you address a total stranger so, how will you speak to those you really love?”
“You wait and see,” answered Nora, her dark-blue eyes shining, and a mist of tears dimming their brightness; “you wait and see. Ah, it's past words we are sometimes; but you wait and you'll soon see.”