Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/369

Rh deepest sorrow. She had lost her husband, and he had been the joy of her life. She spoke of him with words which made me mingle my tears with hers.

In the beautiful evenings the doors of the houses for the most part stood open, and women stood before them with their children, or sate outside and sewed. I made acquaintance first with the children, and then with the mothers.

All were similar in the lot of outward fortune, and yet with that eternal dissimilarity of the inner fortune of life! Thus will it always be. But yet this dissimilarity is borne more easily than that which is caused by the prejudices of caste. It causes less murmuring and less bitterness.

There was one evening a wedding down in the hamlet, and the wedding-guests were seen in their gay wedding attire wandering down the footpaths on the hill side from the dwellings on the hill to the shore. They were dressed simply but tastefully, very much in the same style as the people dress themselves for company in the cities, but in less costly materials.

One evening when somewhat late I was returning home over the hills, I saw, sitting on a stile which I had to pass, a man in a blue artisan blouse, with his brow resting on his hand, in which he held a pocket-handkerchief. As I came nearer he removed his hand and looked at me, and I saw an Irish nose in a good lively countenance, which seemed to be that of a man about thirty years of age.

“It's very warm!” said he, speaking English.

“Yes,” said I, passing, “and you have worked hard, have you not?”

“Yes, my hands are quite spoiled!” and with that he exhibited a pair of coarse black hands.

I asked a little about his circumstances. He was an Irishman, named Jim, and had come hither to seek for