"Many's the day I do be ponderin' on that match, Miss Clodagh," she said earnestly. "The ways of God are dark; and what I done, I done for the best." Clodagh, touched by the deep solicitude of the voice, put her own smooth hand over the old rough one. "I'm sure God did everything as it should be done, Hannah,--because it--it has all come right in the end." Hannah's hand dropped from her shoulder in sudden excitement. "Miss Clodagh!" she said breathlessly--"Miss Clodagh, is it a husband you'll be thinkin' to take?" Again Clodagh's gaze wandered across the sky, melting now from gold to orange. "There is a man who wants to take me for his wife, Hannah," she corrected, very gently. "An' you do be puttin' him before everythin' in the world?" Clodagh turned swiftly and met the small, anxious eyes. "So much before everything, that if I were to lose him now I should lose"--she paused for an instant, then added--"myself." Hannah's eyes narrowed in the intensity of her concern. "An' he do be carin' for you, Miss Clodagh?" Clodagh learnt forward; and the warm light from the sunset touched and transfigured her face. "Yes--he cares," she said very slowly. CHAPTER XVIII Late on the afternoon that followed her arrival, Clodagh--with Larry in attendance--climbed up the uneven path that led from the Orristown boat-cove to the house. A considerable change had taken place in the weather since the previous evening. The sky no longer hung low and motionless above the horizon line; the sea no longer shone white and polished as a mirror. A gale had sprung up, breaking the clouds and whipping the sea into small green waves; and more than once, as the cousins clambered up the rugged track, Asshlin paused to look back at his small boat, lying with furled sail and shipped oars on the shingle. "I hope I've beached her high enough," he said. "There will be a big sea to-night." Clodagh laughed. The prospect of a storm stirred her. She felt boundlessly happy, boundlessly confident in this free, open life. The night before, after Larry had left her, and the first tinge of twilight had fallen across the old house, there had been a moment in which the ghosts of memory had threatened to assail her--to come trooping up the gaunt staircase, and through the great, bare rooms. But her will had conquered; she had dispelled the phantoms, and had slept dreamlessly in the big four-post bed.