MARY.  Oh, sit down with us now, and eat with us.  Bring him to the table, Martin. (MARTIN gives his hand to the old man, and gives him a chair, and puts him sitting at the table with themselves.  He makes two halves of the cake, and gives a half to the blind man, and one of the eggs.  The old man eats eagerly.)

OLD MAN.  I leave my seven hundred thousand blessings on the people of this house.  The blessing of God and Mary on them.

MARY.  That it may be well with you.  O Martin, that is the first blessing I got in my own house.  That blessing is better to me than gold.

OLD MAN.  Aurah, is it not beautiful for people to have a house of their own, and to have eyes to look about with?

MARTIN.  May God preserve you, right man; it is likely it is a poor thing to be without sight.

OLD MAN.  You do not understand, nor any person that has his sight, what it is to be blind and dark the way I am.  Not to have before you and behind you but the night.  Oh, darkness, darkness!  No shape or form in anything; not to see the bird you hear singing in the tree over your head; nor the flower you smell on the bush, or the child, and he laughing in his mother’s breast.  The morning and the evening the day and the night, only the same thing to you Oh, it is a poor thing to be blind! (MARTIN puts over the other half of the cake and the egg to MARY, and makes a sign to her to eat.  She makes a sign to him to take a share of them.  The blind man stretches his hand over the table to try for a crumb of bread, for he has eaten his own share; and he gets hold of the other half cake and takes it.)

MARY.  Eat that, poor man, it is likely there is hunger on you.  Here is another egg for you. (She puts the other egg in his hand.)

BLIND MAN.  The blessing of the Only Son and of the Holy Mother on the hand that gives it. (MARTIN puts up his two hands as if dissatisfied; and he is going to say something when MARY takes the words from his mouth, laughing at his gloomy face.)

BLIND MAN. Maisead, my blessing on the mouth that laughter came from, and my blessing on the light heart that let it out of the mouth.

MARTIN.  A light heart, is it!  There is not a light heart with Mary to-night, my grief!

BLIND MAN.  Mary is your wife?

MARTIN.  She is.  I made her my wife three hours ago.

BLIND MAN.  Three hours ago?

MARTIN (bitterly).—­That is so.  We were married to-day; and it is at our wedding dinner you are sitting.

BLIND MAN.  Your wedding dinner!  Do not be mocking me!  There is no company here.

MARY.  Oh, he is not mocking you; he would not do a thing like that.  There is no company here; for we have nothing in the house to give them.

BLIND MAN.  But you gave it to me!  Is it the truth you are speaking?  Am I the only person that was asked to your wedding?