Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/107

97 away. A little boy passed, looking up at him; he called him towards him.

"Tell me," he said, trembling, "where is Mollie Doherty now?"

"I don't know any one of that name," answered the child.

"You must know!" Henry cried in anger. "She lived in the little house yonder, by the elm tree."

"Oh! old Mother Mollie," the boy laughed; "her we called four-legged Molly, for she went lubbely, lubbely on crutches, and her face all one side, like this."

Henry struck the grinning face of the boy sharply with his hand; and the child, angry and revengeful, sprang back and commenced grinning afresh. He perceived where the wound lay, and flicked it. He hobbled slowly around the old man, grinning and shouting a tune to his steps—the same tune he had shouted after Mollie as she limped past. But as he saw the old man no longer heeded him, he cried,—

"She is dead, old four-legged Mollie is dead! She died three months ago, Father Christmas."

But the old man on the bridge did not 2em