Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/215

Rh with childish triumph. "He said he was teaching it to speak."

"I remember them well," the old grandmother said, "the two children; and with him it was, 'Follow me, Eileen,' and she was after him wherever he went."

A faint giggle from Kathleen and a whispered "She was" drew the stern eye of the neighbour upon her face. She flushed, and said, "I mean no harm; sure the boy is all right."

"'Follow me, Eileen,'" the old woman muttered. "I seem to hear his voice; only a few weeks ago he came to the door and cried to her, then ran like a child, jumping the heather before her."

"It was his way of getting her to himself," the mother said. "God be with him, wherever he is!"

The girl threw her chest out with a long breath, but stifled the sob before it was heard.

"He was for selling every stick and beast about his place," Kathleen said in a hard voice. She once fancied that he cared for her, and the mistake still stabbed her. "Yesterday the bargain was to have come off. Did he tell ye?"