“I’m going to ‘kep’ them,” I said, and they both laughed.

“Oh, heavens, don’t,” he said; “shure they don’t ‘kep’ pirtas in America!”

“I’m not in America now,” I answered, as I circled as much of the little bare table as I could with my arms to keep the potatoes from rolling off.  He dumped them in a heap in the centre; they rolled up against my arms and breast and I pushed them back.  Mary cleared a space for a small pile of salt and the buttermilk bowls.

“We’ll haave a blessin’ by a rale ministher th’ night,” Mary said.

“Oh, yis, that’s thrue enough,” my father said, “but Alec minds th’ time whin it was blessin’ enough to hev th’ murphies—­don’t ye, boy?”

After “tay” I tacked a newspaper over the lower part of the window—­my father lit the candle and Mary put a few turfs on the fire and we sat as we used to sit so many years ago.  My father was so deaf that I had to shout to make him hear and nearly everything I said could be heard by the neighbours in the alley, many of whom sat around the door to hear whatever they could of the story they supposed I would tell of the magic land beyond the sea.

I unbarred the door in answer to a loud knock; it was a most polite note from a Roman Catholic schoolmaster inviting me to occupy a spare room in his house.  Half an hour later we were again interrupted by another visitor, an old friend who also invited me to occupy his spare bed.  It was evidently disturbing the town to know where I was to sleep.  I politely refused all invitations.  Each invitation was explained to my father.

“Shure that’s what’s cracking m’ own skull,” he said; “where th’ divil will ye sleep, anyway, at all, at all?”

Then they listened and I talked—­talked of what the years had meant to me.

The old man sighed often and occasionally there were tears in Mary’s eyes; and there were times when the past surged through my mind with such vividness that I could only look vacantly into the white flame of the peat fire.  Once after a long silence my father spoke—­his voice trembled, “Oh,” he said, “if she cud just have weathered through till this day!”

“Aye,” Mary said, “but how do ye know she isn’t jist around here somewhere, anyway?”

“Aye,” the old man said as he nodded his head, “deed that’s thrue for you, Mary, she may!” He took his black cutty pipe out of his mouth and gazed at me for a moment.

“What d’ye mind best about her?”

“I mind a saying she had that has gone through life with me.”

“‘Ivery day makes its own throuble?’”

“No, not that; something better.  She used to say so often, ’It’s nice to be nice.’”

“Aye, I mind that,” he said.

“Then,” I continued, “on Sundays when she was dressed and her nice tallied cap on her head, I thought she was the purtiest woman I ever saw!”

“’Deed, maan, she was that!”

When bed time came I took a small lap-robe from my suit case, spread it on the hard mud floor, rolled some other clothes as a pillow and lay down to rest.  Sleep came slowly but as I lay I was not alone, for around me were the forms and faces of other days.