This was the beginning of a system of appeals, searching and frequent, which yet never took the direct form of appeal.
"It's I can't be sayin' how I love this old house," she would say irrelevantly one day; and the next, "Me brother Pat has been very kind to me at times—at times!"—here a slow wink and nod at the invisible,—"but it's not your own, God save me, that'll do for you in misfortune! No, ma'am, it's not your own!"
She began giving me little presents, a lace collar first. I insisted that I would rather she kept it herself.
"God save us! And all you've done for me!" Her tone was almost despair. "And you wouldn't let me do that for you! A bit of a lace collar!"
The next time it was a strange mosaic cross; and the next, a queerly contrived egg-beater; again, a very fine and beautiful handkerchief—all of these produced from her trunk. She always had some ingenious tale of how she had come by them.
Meanwhile her attacks were becoming more frequent. At such times she was like one possessed by some spirit. Her mind would wander suddenly, always to her childhood and the Green Isle. She would be calling the cows home at evening, or talking to the pig. When the "spirit" left her, she would be trembling and almost helpless for days, and needed much care.
When she was well enough for me to leave her, I went to see her doctor and her people. The first suggested the almshouse: the others thought that they were not called on to keep her unless she would agree to do exactly as they bade her do, and would renounce her proud ways.
Of course I kept her with me. There are extravagances of poverty which may be allowed, as well as of wealth. Something, too, must be conceded to the spirit of adventure and recklessness. It may be at this crossroads that the provident will bid me adieu. I am sorry to lose their company, for, despite their lesser distinction and certain plebeian tendencies, I like the provident. But before they determine to depart, I may be allowed to wonder whether they have ever been in such close relation with the poor as I was then. Have they ever felt the persistent appeal of a Margaret, I wonder, or seen her eyes go twenty times a day to them as to one who held her fate in their keeping? I think perhaps they will not have over-heard her say to the pig in a moment of half-gay thankfulness, "Arrah! God save us! are ye glad as ye should be ye're with people that have got a heart?" Or perhaps the provident will scarcely have been vouchsafed a terrible understanding, as I had at that time, of the dark possibilities of life, or have known what it was to wonder where the next meals would come from.
"But," argue the provident, "could she not have gone to her people?" Which, being interpreted, means: "Should she not have taken thankfully the grudged and conditioned charity, with dominion, offered her by those in more fortunate circumstances?"
And to that I answer, "If you think so, then I can only judge that you know little 'how salt is the bread of others and how steep their stairs'; and I can but refer you to one who has spoken immortally of these matters."