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 hears the song of the mavis; he is walking homeward along the black path through the bog, and up the green boreen, and there before him is the little cottage, its thatch held down by sticks and stones, a long ash pole propping up its crumbling gable; there is the mud shed with the thills of the old cart sticking out of it; the donkey is standing by, sad as ever; and up the muddy lane little Annie in her bare feet is driving the cows to the byre; and then he sees his mother sitting in the low doorway, all at once he catches his first whiff of the peat smoke, and with the strange spell that odors work upon the memory, it makes him a boy again; again he is sheltered on a rainy day in the mud shed, playing shoot-*marbles with Andy Corrigan and Jerry O'Brien; again he is in the little chapel with the leaky roof; he sees all the boys and girls—Mary Cassidy among them—standing on the bare clay floor; he brings his bit of stone to kneel on during mass, he even runs out for a piece of slate to give to Mary, who lays it in the puddle at her feet and spreads her handkerchief over it before she kneels. And when the mass is over he will take little Nora—little Nora? He placed his hand to his forehead in confusion, and