They walked on together, Margaret talking cheerfully, and Catharine mingling some painful thoughts with her gratitude. “Mary Margaret,” she said, at length, in a low, mournful voice, “you will never turn against me, as the others have, because I cannot give you proof that—that the poor baby they buried away from me was honestly mine; you will take my word for it, I feel almost sure!” “I don’t want ye’r word; one look in ye’r purty face is enough for me, and I’d stand up for ye agin the whole univarse, with old Ireland to the fore.” “Thank you—God bless you for that,” answered Catharine, and for the first time in many days a smile broke over her face. “You are so honest and so kind, Margaret, I could not bear that you should think ill of me.” Margaret did not answer at once, but walked on thoughtfully. “In course,” she said at last, “I belave ivery word ye tell me; but if it wasn’t so—if ye had been a poor, desaved crathur instid of the swate innicent ye are, I wouldn’t turn, agin ye anyhow. It ain’t Christian, and, accordin’ to my idees, it ain’t modest for a woman to hold a poor, fallen feller crathur down in the gutter foriver and iver. The blissed Saviour, who was holier than us all, didn’t do it, and, by all the holy saints, Mary Margaret Dillon niver will either.” Catharine drew a deep sigh. “Don’t sigh in that way, darlint,” exclaimed Margaret, kindly. “D’ye know that ivery time ye draw a deep breath like that it drinks a drop of blood from ye’r heart? Don’t sigh agin, that’s a darlint.” “I was thinking,” replied Catharine, “how much worse it would have ended if I had really been so wicked as they think I am; it seems to me as if I must have laid down on the first door-step and died. Nothing but my own sense of right has given me strength to live—and after all, what have I to live for now?” “Hist, darlint, hist, this is talkin’ like a hathen. Ye’re to live because the blissid Saviour thinks it’s good for ye, and that’s enough for a Christian. Besides, it’s mane and low-lived to give way, wid the first dash of trouble, especially when we see every day that the Saviour makes ye strong and more determined.” Catharine submitted to this rebuke for her momentary repining with gentle patience. The simple piety and honest good sense of Mary Margaret had its effect upon her, and before she reached the shanty where the good woman lived, something of hopefulness sprang up in her heart. She could not help feeling that there was something providential in her encounter with the good Irishwoman at the moment of her utmost need. This gave strength to many hopeful impulses that are always latent in the bosom of the young. CHAPTER XXIV. MARY MARGARET DILLON’S SHANTY.