"Yes, she was saying so."
Then the little one sang—
"In Jorby curragh they dwell alone
By dark peat–bogs, where the willows moan,
Down in a gloomy and lonely glen—"
"Mammy, had Danny any father?"
"Everybody had a father, my veen."
"Had Ruby a father?"
"Hush, Ruby veg!"
Mona's hand unconsciously pressed the hand of Christian. "Oh," she muttered, and crept closer to his breast. Christian's bowels yearned for the child.
The silvery voice was singing again—
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?
Who does not know that his soul was truth?
Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,
And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
"I am quite sure a good fairy is coming," said Ruby, cocking her eye aslant at that peg on the dresser.
Christian could bear it no longer. He flung open the door, and snatched up the darling in his arms.
An hour later he and Mona came out again into the night, leaving the little one with laughing, wondering, wakeful eyes in bed, and Mrs. Cregeen sitting before the fire with something like happiness in her usually mournful face.
They took the road towards the town. They had no errand there, but the restless, tumultuous joy of this night would not leave them a moment's peace.
