"I have just the sort of 'neat little cot in a quiet spot, with a distant view of the rolling sea' that you yearn for, Beth," he said, smiling, when she paused, "and I have come to ask you and Angelica to drive over with me to see it."
"You mean Ilverthorpe Cottage," said Angelica, jumping up. "O Daddy! it's the very place. Two storeys, Beth, ivy, roses, jasmine, wisteria without; and within, space and comfort of every kind—and the sea in sight! Such a pretty garden, too, grass and trees and shrubs and flowers. And near enough for us all to see you as often as you wish. Beth, be excited too! I must bring my violin, I think, and play a triumphal march on the way."
Ilverthorpe Cottage was all and more than Angelica had said, and Beth did not hesitate to take it. It was Mr. Kilroy's property, and the rent was suspiciously low, but Beth supposed that that was because the house was out of the way. She and Angelica spent long happy days in getting it ready for occupation, choosing paper, paint, and furnishments. Mr. Kilroy saw to the stables, which he completed with a saddle-horse and a pony-carriage. There was a short cut across the fields, a lovely walk, from Ilverthorpe House to the Cottage, and when Angelica could not accompany her, Beth would stroll over alone to see how things were getting on, and wander about her little demesne, and love it. Outside her garden, in front of the house, the highroad ran, a sheltered highroad, with a raised footpath, bordered on either side with great trees, oak and elm, chestnut and beech, and a high hawthorn hedge just whitening into blossom. The field-path came out on this highroad, down which she had to walk a few hundred yards to her own gate. Day after day there was an old Irish labourer, a stonebreaker, by the wayside, kneeling on a sack beside a great heap of stones, who gave her a cheery good-morrow as she passed. Once she went across the road and spoke to him. He had the face of a saint at his devotions.
"You kneel there all day long," she said, "and as you kneel you pray, perhaps. Will you pray for me? Pray, pray that I may"—she was going to say succeed, but stopped—"that I may be good."
The man raised his calm eyes, and looked her in the face. "You are good, lady," he said simply.
"Yet pray," she entreated; "and pray too that all I do may be good, and of good effect."
"All you do is good, lady," he answered once more, in the same quiet tone of conviction.
"But I want all I do to be the best for the purpose that can be done."
She put some money in his hand and turned away, and as she went he watched her. She had touched him with her soft gloveless fingers in giving him the money, and when she had gone, he was conscious of the touch; it tingled through him, and he looked at the spot on which the impression remained, as if he expected it to be in some sort visible.
"Now Our Lady love you and the saints protect you, bless your sweet face," he muttered; "and may all you do be the best that can be done for every one. Amen."