Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl by L. T. Meade (best chinese ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“It was very good of you to meet us, father. Was mother terribly angry?”

“What could you expect her to be? You have behaved very badly.”

“I don't think so. I did the only possible thing to save Nora's heart from breaking.”

“It seems to me,” said Mr. Hartrick slowly, “that you all think of nothing but the heart of Nora. I am almost sorry now that I ever asked her to come to us in England.”

“Oh, it's home again; it's home again!” cried the Irish girl as she paced up and down the platform. “Molly, do listen to the brogue. Isn't it just delicious? Come along, and let's talk to this poor old Irish beggar.”

“Oh, but he doesn't look at all pleasant,” said Molly, backing a little.

“Bless the crayther, but he is pleasant,” said Nora. “I must go and have a chat with him.” She caught hold of Molly's hand, and dragged her to the edge of the pavement, where an old man, with almost blind eyes, was seated in front of a large basket of rosy apples.

“And how are you this morning, father?” said Nora.

“Oh, then, it's the top of the morning to yez, honey,” was the instant reply. “And how is yourself?”

“Very well indeed,” said Nora.

“Then it's I that am delighted to see yez, though see yez I can't. Oh, then, I hope that it's a long life and plenty you'll have before you, my sweet, dear, illigant young lady—a good bed to lie on, and plenty to eat and drink. If you has them, what else could ail yez? Good-by to yez; good-by to yez.”

Nora slipped a couple of pence into his hand.

“The blessings of the Vargin and all the Saints be on your head, miss. Oh! it's I that am glad to see yez. God's blessing on yez a thousand times.”

Nora took the old man's hand and wrung it. He raised the white little hand to his lips and kissed it.

“There now,” he said, “I have kissed yez; and these lips shan't see wather again for many a long day—that they shan't. I wouldn't wash off the taste of your hand, honey, for a bag of yellow gold.”

“What an extraordinary man!” said Molly. “Have you known him all your life?”

“Known him all my life!” said Nora. “Never laid eyes on him before; that's the way we always talk to one another. Oh, I can tell you we love each other here in Ireland.”

“It seems so,” answered Molly, in some astonishment. “Dear me! if you address a total stranger so, how will you speak to those you really love?”

“You wait and see,” answered Nora, her dark-blue eyes shining, and a mist of tears dimming their brightness; “you wait and see. Ah, it's past words we are sometimes; but you wait and you'll soon see.”

Mr. O'Shanaghgan was pronounced better, although Mr. Hartrick had to admit that he was weak and fretful; and, now that Nora had come, it was extremely likely that her presence would do her father a sight of good.

“I knew it, Uncle George,” she answered as they seated themselves in the railway carriage preparatory to going back to O'Shanaghgan—“I knew it, and that was why I came. You, uncle, are very wise,” she added; “and yours is a beautiful, neat, orderly country; and you are very kind, and very clever; and you have been awfully good to the Irish girl—awfully good; and she is very ignorant; and you know a great deal; but one thing she does know best, and that is, the love and the longing in the heart of her own dear father. Oh, hurrah! I'm home again; I'm home again! Erin go bragh! Erin go bragh!”