Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/41

 Kate write a letter to his aunt out in Pittsburgh, to know if she'd seen the lad. It was a good letter and well written, though Norah Kate isn't the equal of Sonny for writing. But what use was it? He hadn't been near his aunt—nor she hadn't heard from him. All she said was that America's a big country and Michael Antony might be somewhere in it without her knowing. It was Michael Antony she said in her letter, not knowing that it was Sonny we always called him, though, of course, Michael Antony was his name."

I plodded home that evening along the muddy road and my heart in me was as sorrowful as the grey clouds which hung low over my head. Mrs. Cassidy's tragedy is the tragedy of Ireland. Their names are many, though we call them all Sonny. They go from us to a land that is very far off and we are left to grow old alone.

It was on Christmas Eve that I saw Mrs. Cassidy again. I did not mean to go to see her; but I was passing along the road and Norah Kate was watching for me at the end of the lane, as her father had watched for me a month before.

"My mother says," she said, "will your reverence step up to the house for a minute the way she'll be able to speak to you? For there's something that she wants to say."

It had rained steadily day and night since the last time I visited the Cassidys' house. The lane