“‘Bridget,’ siz she, ‘we’d a nice play down in the glen, hadn’t we!’
“I couldn’t answer, my heart was so full, for I saw she thought she was home in Coleraine.
“‘Bridget!’ she called, and held out her little hands to me. I took her in my arms, cryin’ all the time.
“‘Let’s go into the cottage,’ siz she, ‘for father and grandmother have been callin’ us a good many times. It’s dark out here, Bridget, and cold—hold me, Bridget, dear, for I can’t see.’
“Then she called ‘mother!’ and tryin’ to put her little arms around my neek, said she wanted to go to sleep, and told me to sing to her. I hugged her close up to me, and after a few words about the long grass under the hill by the cottage, where she and Jinny used to roll over playin’, she drew a long breath, and as I kissed her, she died. Och, but that was the darkest night I iver spent, Miss Enna. I was all alone, for Mrs. Hill had gone to sleep, tellin’ me I must call her if Elsie was worse. There I sat all night holdin’ my dead darlint close to my bosom, too heart-struck to cry. But when in the morning Mrs. Hill tried to take her from me, they say I screamed and held on to her like a mad person.
“I niver saw Elsie afterward, Miss Enna,” said the poor girl, with tears streaming down her cheeks, “for when they buried her in the cold earth, I was raving sick, and they said I would die too. Part of the time I know’d them, and part of the time I was crazy, but when I’d my sinses, I prayed God would just keep me alive to see my mother. He heard my prayer,” she continued, crossing herself devoutly, “and before mother came I was well again, though my heart was full of sorrow for Elsie.
“When I sent for mother, I told her not to come till fall, for I thought by that time I’d lay by a trifle of money to take a room in Philadelphia and buy some furniture. All summer I worked hard, and Mrs. Hill, the good soul, give me as much money in the fall as if Elsie had been workin’ too. She know’d what I wanted with it, and she give me some old chairs, and a bed, too. I was sorry to leave her, for her and her husband was kind to us always; but I know’d mother would feel lonely like in town without me. So I packed up all my things, and came in Mr. Hill’s market-wagon to town.
“Father Shane had writ to me that the vessel was expected in a week or so—and I came to town just in time to rent a nice room for mother. I’d enough of money to pay a month’s rint ahead, and to buy some wood. Then I bought a carpet and a nice bedstead, and a table, and a good, warm stove—oh, yes, and a cushioned form, or sofy, as the people call it here, that looked like the one we had at home in Coleraine. Gracey give me a little trifle, which was a grate dale for her, seein’ it had been summer-time, and she had to have a new bonnet, bein’ in town.
“The night before mother came, Gracey ran round from her place to see mother’s room, and how proud I felt, as we stood in the middle of it, and looked around at all the things—we felt so rich.
“‘Now, if we only had a bureau,’ said Gracey, ‘to put under that little glass of mine.’