“Well,” observed Mave, who had fallen back upon her own position, and the danger alluded to by the stranger, “I’ll do nothing that’s wrong myself, and if there’s danger about me, as I hear there is, it’s a good thing to know that God can guard me in spite of all that any one can do against me.”

“Let that be your principle, ahagur—­sooner or latter the hand o’ God can and will make everything clear, and after all, dear, he is the best protection, blessed be his name!”

They had now reached the cross-roads already spoken of, where the prophet’s wife again joined them for a short time, previous to her separation from Mave, whose way from that point lay in a direction opposite to theirs.

“This woman,” said Mave, “wishes to go to Condy Dalton’s in the course of the evening, and you, Nelly, can show her from the road the poor place they now live in, God help them.”

“To be sure,” replied the other, “an’ the house where they did live when they wor as themselves, full, an’ warm, an’ daicent; an’ it is a hard case on them, God knows, to be turned out like beggars from a farm that they spent hundreds on, and to be forced to see the landlord, ould Dick o’ the Grange, now settin’ it at a higher rent and putting into his own pocket the money they had laid out upon improvin’ it an’ makin’ it valuable for him and his; troth, it’s open robbery an’ nothin’ else.”

“It in a hard case upon them, as every body allows,” said Mave, “but it’s over now, and can’t be helped.  Good-bye, Nelly, an’ God bless you; an’ God bless you too,” she added, addressing the strange woman, whose hand she shook and pressed.  “You are a great deal oulder than I am, an’ as I said, every one may read care an’ sorrow upon your face.  Mine doesn’t show it yet, I know, but for all that the heart within me is full of both, an’ no likelihood of its ever bein’ otherwise with me.”

As she spoke, the tears again gushed down her cheeks; but she checked her grief by an effort, and after a second hurried good-bye, she proceeded on her way home.

“That seems a mild girl,” said the strange woman, “as she is a lovely creature to look at.”

“She’s better than she looks,” returned the prophet’s wife, “an’ that’s a great deal to say for her.”

“That’s but truth,” replied the stranger, “and I believe it; for indeed she has goodness in her face.”

“She has and in her heart,” replied Nelly; “no wondher, indeed, that every one calls her the Gra Gal, for it’s she that well deserves it.  I You are bound for Condy Dalton’s, then?” she added, inquiringly.  “I am,” said the other.  “I think you must be a stranger in the country, otherwise I’d know your face,” continued Nelly—­“but maybe you’re a relation of theirs.”

“I am a stranger,” said the other; “but no relation.”

“The Daltons,” proceeded Nelly, “are daicent people,—­but hot and hasty, as the savin’ is.  It’s the blow before the word wid them always.”