ashamed before his comrades—and them maybe spending more or less in the town after a football kicking or the like.
"Well, for as much as six months there wasn't a word out of him about America, and we thought he was settled down for good. Then one day, all of a sudden, he walked in on us, the same as it might be you walking in this minute: 'I'm off to America, to-morrow,' says he. 'I've sold the young bullock'—it was a young bullock the calf was by that time—'and I have my passage booked; and there's no use your talking, for my mind's made up.'
"I knew well enough it was no use talking, for Sonny was always terrible stubborn once his mind was made up. He wouldn't change, not if the King of England was to go down on his knees to him. He went the next morning, sure enough."
"He'll be back some day," I said feebly.
"He'll not be back," said Mrs. Cassidy; "or if he is I won't be here to see him. I buried one and I've lost the other. Is it any wonder my heart is broke to pieces?"
A poet—Tennyson, I think—speaks of the words of the comforter as "Vacant chaff, well meant for grain." I felt the truth of this description when I tried to talk to Mrs. Cassidy. She felt the same thing, I suppose, for she cut me short.
"Never a word did we hear of him or from him from that day to this," she said. "I made Norah
