"I said in the first of coming out that I 'd go home again when I had fifty pounds," said Nora hastily, and taking the other side of the narrow road. "I 've got a piece of it already, and I 've sent back more beside. I thought I 'd be gone two years, but some days I think I won't be so long as that."
"Why don't you be afther getting your mother out? 'T is so warm in the winter in a good house, and no dampness like there does be at home; and her brother and her sister both being here." There was deep anxiety in Johnny's voice.
"Oh, I don't know indeed!" said Nora. "She's very wake-hearted, is me mother; she 'd die coming away from the old place and going to sea. No, I 'm going to work meself and go home; I 'll have presents, too, for everybody along the road, and the children 'll be running and skrieghing afther me, and they 'll all get sweeties from me. 'T is a very poor neighborhood where we live, but a lovely sight of the say. It ain't often annybody comes home to it, but 't will be a great day then, and the poor old folks 'll all be calling afther me: 'Where's Nora?' 'Show me Nora!' 'Nora, sure, what have you got for me?' I 'ont forget one of them aither, God helping me!" said Nora, in a passion of tenderness and pity. "And, oh, Johnny, then afther that I 'll see me mother in the door!"
Johnny was so close at her side that she slipped her hand into his, and neither of them stopped to think about so sweet and natural a pleasure. "I 'd like well to help you, me darlin'," said Johnny.
"Sure, an' was n't it yourself gave me all me good fortune?" exclaimed Nora. "I 'd be hard-hearted an' I forgot that so soon and you a Kerry boy, and me mother often spaking of your mother's folks before ever I thought of coming out!"
"Sure and would n't you spake the good word to your mother about me sometime, dear?" pleaded Johnny, openly taking the part of lover. Nora's hand was still in his; they were walking slowly in the summer night. "I loved you the first word I heard out of your mouth,—'twas like a thrush from home singing to me there in the train. I said when I got home that night, I 'd think of no other girl till the day I died."
"Oh!" said Nora, frightened with the change of his voice. "Oh, Johnny, 't is too soon. We never walked out this way before; you 'll have to wait for me; perhaps you 'd soon be tired of poor Nora, and the likes of one that's all for saving and going home! You 'll marry a prittier girl than me some day," she faltered, and let go his hand.
"Indeed, I won't, then," insisted Johnny O'Callahan stoutly.
"Will you let me go home to see me mother?" said Nora soberly. "I 'm afther being very homesick, 't is the truth for me. I 'd lose all me courage if it wa'n't for the hope of that."
"I will, indeed," said Johnny honestly.