'Maybe, maybe, though I doubt could it be so.' Nor was it so. The old woman, lying back so quietly among her pillows, with closed eyes, yet with that look of singular intentness and concentration, was seeking no lover of her youth; though, indeed, she had had one once, and from time to time he did enter her revery, try as she would to prevent him. At that point, she always made the singular comment, 'Gone past! I must be getting back to the beginning,' and, pressing back into her earliest consciousness, she would remount the flooding current of the years. Each time, she hoped to get further,--though remoter shapes were illusive, and, if approached too closely, vanished,--for, once embarked on her river of memories, the descent was relentlessly swift. How tantalizing that swiftness! However she yearned to linger, she was rushed along till, all too soon, she sailed into the common light of day. At that point, she always put about, and laboriously recommenced the ascent. To-day, something her niece had said about Donnybrook Fair--for Anna, too, was a child of the old sod--seemed to swell out with a fair wind the sails of her visionary bark. She closed her mind to all familiar shapes and strained back--way, way back, concentrating all her powers in an effort of will. For a bit she seemed to hover in populous space. This did not disturb her; she had experienced the same thing before. It simply meant that she had mounted pretty well up to the fountain-head. The figures, when they did come, would be the ones she most desired. At last, they began to take shape, tenuously at first, then of fuller body, each bringing its own setting, its own atmospheric suggestion--whether of dove-feathered Irish cloud and fresh greensward, sudden downpour, or equally sudden clearing, with continual leafy drip, drip, drip, in the midst of brilliant sunshine. For Margaret O'Brien, ardent summer sunlight seemed suddenly to pervade the cool, orderly little bed-chamber. Then, 'Here she is!' and a wee girl of four danced into view, wearing a dress of pink print, very tight at the top and very full at the bottom. She led the way to a tiny new house whence issued the cheery voice of hammers. Lumber and tools were lying round; from within came men's voices. The small girl stamped up the steps and looked in. Then she made for the narrow stair. 'Where's Margaret gone to?' said one of the men. 'The upper floor's not finished. It's falling through the young one will be.' 'Peggy!' called the older man. 'Come down here with you.' There was a delighted squeal. The pink dress appeared at the head of the stairs. 'Oh, the funny little man, daddy! Such a funny little old man with a high hat! Come quick, let you, and see him.' The two men ran to the stairs. 'Where is he?' She turned back and pointed. Then her face fell. 'Gone! the little man is gone!' Her father laughed and picked her up in his arms. 'How big was he, Peg? As big as yourself, I wonder?' 'No, no! Small.'