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with such a name. Then the stationmaster came and troubled me about a ticket. I had no ticket, for I had never thought of buying one; but I offered to satisfy him by giving money. While I was seeking for my purse I saw the woman going along the road from the station. I was more sure than ever that she was a foreigner, because she carried the child on her back, having wrapped him in a shawl and brought the ends of it across her shoulders. None of our country-women, except the tinkers' wives, carry children in this way. I asked the man who she was, and where she lived. He said: 'Is it poor Mrs. Cane you mean, ma'am? She lives at Cuslough, two miles along the road. She was up to Athlone with her boy, taking him to the doctor. She was telling me that he was very bad. Indeed, it's trouble enough she has, poor lady, without that.

"I wondered that he should speak of her as 'poor,' who was the mother of the Child of our Hope, and I thought how generations after would call her blessed. Then I asked the man the way to Cuslough.

"It's two miles if you follow the road, ma'am, and you can't miss it; for it's the first house you see when you come at the lake; but you could save half the distance by crossing the bog, and it won't be soft this weather.'

"I thought that the woman would go by the shorter way, and that I might overtake her. However, I did not see her; but I lost my way, and