She did not turn from him, though she looked down to the grass where the point of her sunshade now rested. Her face was diffused with color.
"Forgive me for saying so much," he continued, "for I realize I am quite a stranger to you."
"A stranger?" she asked.
"Yes; we have not known each other long. You don't know much about me."
"I seem to have known you a long time," she said, looking up. "I often think I have met you before. Sometimes I imagine you look like the young missionary whom I first heard on the streets of Kansas City; but of course, that can't be."
"No; I never was on a mission. But I'm glad you think of me as you do, for then you'll let me come and see you in London, in Paris and wherever you go. I assure you, it would be rather uninteresting sight-seeing without your presence, if not always in person, then in spirit. After all, much depends on the condition of the eyes with which one looks on an object whether it is interesting or not."
Then the talk led to personal matters. He spoke of his experiences in Utah—some of them—and she fold him her simple life's story. Her mother had died many years ago; she had no very distinct recollection of her. She and her father had lived with housekeepers for many years. What with school and home, the one trip before to Europe, a number of excursions to various parts of her own country, her life had passed very smoothly and very quietly among her friends and books. As Chester listened to her he thought how like in some respects her story was to that of Julia Elston's. And as she sat there under the trees, she again looked like Julia, yet with a difference. Somehow the first girl had vanished but she had left behind in his heart a susceptibility to a form and face like this one beside him. Julia had come into his heart, not to dwell there, but to purify it, adorn it, and to make it ready for someone else;—and that other person had come. She filled the sanctuary of his heart. Peace and love beyond the telling were inmates with her. Had he not come to his own at last.
That afternoon, as he sat with Lucy under the trees at Blarney, listening to her story, told in simplicity with eyes alternating between smiles and tears, he felt so near heaven that his prayers went easily ahead of him to the throne of mercy and love, bearing a message of praise and gratitude to the Giver of all good.
These two were quite alone that afternoon. Even the care-taker went within the thick walls of the castle, remembering, perhaps, that she also had been young once. Birds may have eyes to see and ears to hear, but they tell nothing to humans.
On the way back to Cork there was only one other passenger in the car,—an Irish girl carrying a basket in which were two white kittens. About half way to the city, the train stopped, and much to the travelers' surprise, a company of about two hundred Gordon Highlanders boarded the train, filling the cars completely.