Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/317

Rh and, dissatisfied, drew it back again in heavy waves about her face.

She could hear the boys and girls running to and fro from their homes, loud in their laughter and fun. There was dancing at the cross-roads to-night. The old piper was there with his pipes, the boys and girls jigging before him. Last year she danced also with her lover, and her heart was as light as a thistle-seed. And the next morning he sailed away, and was drowned.

To-night no one spoke to her or came to her door, save one; for they said, "She is fretting, poor colleen, thinking of last year. Leave her in peace." But one young girl, hearing them, in her pity pressed upon the latch of the door and looked in. But, seeing the glory in the woman’s face, the girl fell back. "She is not fretting," she told the others; "she is the gladdest of us all."

When the shadows advanced, and the evening grew late, the young people gathered at their firesides to burn nuts and find their fortunes. The woman in her lonely cottage seated herself upon one of the chairs by the hearth. She sat motionless, listening with her