something fine and commanding in the first
erectness of her figure. She drooped again
in a minute or two, and seemed looking for
something on the ground, as, with bent head,
she turned off from the spot where I gazed
upon her, and was lost to my sight. I fancy
I missed my way, and made a round in
spite of the landlord's directions, for by the
time I had reached Bridget's cottage she was
there, with no semblance of hurried walk or
discomposure of any kind. The door was
slightly ajar. I knocked, and the majestic
figure stood before me, silently awaiting the
explanation of my errand. Her teeth were
all gone, so the nose and chin were brought
near together; the grey eyebrows were
straight and almost hung over her deep
cavernous eyes, and the thick white hair lay
in silvery masses over the low, wide, wrinkled
forehead. For a moment I stood uncertain
how to shape my answer to the solemn
questioning of her silence.

"Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I
believe ?"

She bowed her head in assent.

"I have something to say to you. May
I come in? I am unwilling to keep you
standing."

"You cannot tire me," she said, and at
first she seemed inclined to deny me the
shelter of her roof. But the next moment,—
she had searched the very soul in me with
her eyes during that instant,—she led me in,
and dropped the shadowing hood of her grey
draping cloak, which had previously hid part
of the character of her countenance. The
cottage was rude and bare enough. But
before that picture of the Virgin, of which I
have made mention, there stood a little cup
filled with fresh primroses. While she paid
her reverence to the Madonna, I understood
why she had been out seeking through the
clumps of green in the sheltered copse.
Then she turned round, and bade me be
seated. The expression of her face, which
all this time I was studying, was not bad, as
the stories of my last night's landlord had
led me to expect; it was a wild, stern, fierce,
indomitable countenance, seamed and scarred
by agonies of solitary weeping; but it was
neither cunning nor malignant.

"My name is Bridget Fitzgerald," said
she, by way of opening our conversation.

"And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald,
of Knock-Mahon, near Kildoon, in Ireland?"

A faint light came into the dark gloom of
her eyes.

"He was."

"May I ask if you had any children by
him?"

The light in her eyes grew quick and red.
She tried to speak, I could see; but something
rose in her throat, and choked her, and
until she could speak calmly, she would fain
not speak at all before a stranger. In a
minute or so she said:

"I had a daughter—one Mary Fitzgerald,—"
then her strong nature mastered
her strong will, and she cried out, with a
trembling, wailing cry: "Oh, man! what of
her?—what of her?"

She rose from her seat and came and
clutched at my arm, and looked in my eyes.
There she read, as I suppose, my utter
ignorance of what had become of her child; for
she went blindly back to her chair, and sat
rocking and softly moaning to herself, as if I
were not there; I not daring to speak to the
lone and awful woman. After a little pause,
she knelt down before the picture of our Lady
of the Holy Heart, and spoke to her by all the
fanciful and poetic names of the Litany.

"O, Rose of Sharon! O, Tower of
David! O, Star of the Sea! have you no
comfort for my sore heart ? Am I for ever
to hope? Grant me at least despair,"—and
so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her
prayers grew wilder and wilder, till they
seemed to me to touch on the borders of
madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily,
I spoke as if to stop her.

"Have you any reason to think that your
daughter is dead?"

She rose from her knees, and came and
stood before me.

"Mary Fitzgerald is dead," said she. "I
shall never see her again in the flesh. No
tongue ever told me. But I know she is
dead. I have yearned so to see her, and my
heart's will is fearful and strong; it would
have drawn her to me before now, if she had
been a wanderer on the other side of the
world. I wonder often it has not drawn her
out of the grave to come and stand before
me, and hear me tell her how I loved her.
For, sir, we parted unfriends."

I knew nothing but the dry particulars
needed for my lawyer's quest, but I could
not help feeling for the desolate woman; and
she must have read the unusual sympathy
with her wistful eyes.

"Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how
I loved her; and we parted unfriends; and
I fear me that I wished her voyage might
not turn out well, only meaning,—O, blessed
Virgin! you know I only meant that she
should come home to mother's arms as to the
happiest place on earth; but my wishes are
terrible—their power goes beyond my
thought—and there is no hope for me, if my
words brought Mary harm."

"But," I said, "you do not know that
she is dead. Even now, you hoped she
might be alive. Listen to me," and I told
her the tale I have already told you, giving
it all in the driest manner, for I wanted to
recall the clear sense that I felt almost sure
she had possessed in her younger days, and
by keeping up her attention to details restrain
the vague wildness of her grief.

She listened with deep attention, putting
from time to time such questions as convinced
me I had to do with no common intelligence,
however dimmed and shorn by solitude and