Page:The Aran Islands, parts I and II (Synge).djvu/116

 She was sitting in a heap on the floor staring into the turf, and as I finished she looked up with surprise.

"They're like me so,' she said; 'would any one have thought that!'

Below the sympathy we feel there is still a chasm between us.

'Musha,' she muttered, as I was leaving her this evening, 'I think it's to hell you'll be going by and by.'

Occasionally I meet her also in a kitchen where young men go to play cards after dark and a few girls slip in to share the amusement. At such times her eyes shine in the light of the candles, and her cheeks flush with the first tumult of youth, till she hardly seems the same girl who sits every evening droning to herself over the turf.

A branch of the Gaelic League has been started here since my last visit, and every Sunday afternoon three little girls walk through the village ringing a shrill handbell, as a signal that the women's meeting is to be held—here it would be useless to fix an hour, as the hours are not recognized.

Soon afterwards bands of girls—of all ages from five to twenty-five—begin to troop down to the schoolhouse in their reddest Sunday petticoats. It is remarkable that these young