“A bit av a cup av coffee fer ye, honey,” she explained, crossing to the bed. “Shure an' there's nuthin' loike it when ye first wake up. Howly Mither, but it's toird 'nough ye do be lookin' yet.”
“I haven't slept very well,” the girl confessed, bringing her hand out from beneath the coverlet, the locket still tightly clasped in her fingers. “See, I found this on the floor last night after you had gone down stairs.”
“Ye did!” setting the coffee on a convenient chair, and reaching out for the trinket. “Let's have a look at it once. Angels av Hiven, if it isn't the same the ol' Gineral was showin' me in the parly.”
The other sat up suddenly, her white shoulders and rounded throat gleaming.
“The old General, you said? What General? When was he here?”
“Shure now, be aisy, honey, an' Oi 'll tell ye all there is to it. It's not his name Oi know; maybe Oi niver heard till av it, but 'twas the 'Gineral' they called him, all right. He was here maybe three days outfittin'—a noice spoken ol' gintlemin, wid a gray beard, an' onc't he showed me the locket—be the powers, if it do be his, there's an openin' to it, an' a picter inside.”
The girl touched the spring, revealing the face within, but her eyes were blinded with tears. The landlady looked at her in alarm.
“What is it, honey? What is it? Did you know him?”
The slender form swayed forward, shaken with sobs.
“He was my father, and—and this is my mother's picture which he always carried.”