I was just passing through it when I heard my mother say "Mary" in a strange low voice, and I turned and saw her—I can see her still—with her beautiful pale face all broken up, and her arms held out to me.
Then I rushed back to her, and she clasped me to her breast crying, "Mally veen! My Mally veen!" and I could feel her heart beating through her dress and hear the husky rattle in her throat, and then all our poor little game of make-believe broke down utterly.
At the next moment my father was calling upstairs that I should be late for the steamer, so my mother dried her own eyes and then mine, and let me go.
Father Dan was gone when I reached the head of the stairs but seeing Nessy MacLeod and Betsy Beauty at the bottom of them I soon recovered my composure, and sailing down in my finery I passed them in stately silence with my little bird-like head in the air.
I intended to do the same with Aunt Bridget, who was standing with a shawl over her shoulders by the open door, but she touched me and said:
"Aren't you going to kiss me good-bye, then?"
"No," I answered, drawing my little body to its utmost height.
"And why not?"
"Because you've been unkind to mamma and cruel to me, and because you think there's nobody but Betsy Beauty. And I'll tell them at the Convent that you are making mamma ill, and you're as bad as . . . as bad as the bad women in the Bible!"
"My gracious!" said Aunt Bridget, and she tried to laugh, but I could see that her face became as white as a whitewashed wall. This did not trouble me in the least until I reached the carriage, when Father Dan, who was sitting inside, said: