"Mebbe it's the thruth you're afther findin' out; but I misthrust, and it's meself will never fergive her if she breaks the heart of the best by in the counthry."
The possibility was too much for the sorrowful mother. She threw her apron over her head, and abandoned herself once more to despair, swaying to and fro disconsolately in the black [Pg 69] wooden chair from the back of which the gilt had been half rubbed away by quarter of a century of rocking.
"Do you think it could possibly do any good for me to talk with Leonard?" Winifred ventured, quite dubious in her own mind of the wisdom of the proceeding.
"Ow, if yez would, 'twould like be the savin' o' the by. He'll not bear any of us to shpake wid him at all at all."
"Very well then, I will try to get him to talk about it. Only don't be disappointed if I do not succeed! The chances are that he will not listen to me."
"Not listen to yoursilf, is it!" cried Mrs. Davitt, once more transported to the heights of hope. "Sure, the saints in Hiven would lay down their harps to hear your swate vice. Yes, and aven to look at ye, as ye shtand there, in that white dhress, jist like what wan o' thimsilves 'ud be wearin'! How becomin' ye are to your clothes!"
Winifred smiled at the subtle flattery; but before she could muster an appropriate acknowledgment, she caught sight of Leonard loitering at the gate.
"There is Leon now; I will ask him to walk part way home with me. It is growing dark, and you know," she added, laughing, "how timid I am!"
Mrs. Davitt smiled in answer to the laugh, for Winifred's daring was the talk of the countryside. She dried her eyes, and peered over her spectacles at her visitor as she picked her way among the chickens, feathered and human, who thronged about the doorstep, to the spot where Leonard stood, listlessly hanging over the gate gazing idly up and down the road.