I thought I had little Nora, my godchild, on my knee, and was teachin' her “Why are the daisies in the grass?” I can't tell you how happy I felt!' There it was: the only thing like company to her poor heart was a dhrame!” “I do not wonder that you love her, Catty,” said Kate; and the words fell tremulously from her lips. “Love her! what's the use of such as me lovin' her?” cried the old woman, querulously. “Sure, it's not one of my kind knows how good she is! If you only seen her comin' in here, after dark, maybe, wet and weary and footsore, half famished with cold and hunger,--out the whole livelong day, over the mountains, where there was fever and shakin' ague, and starvin' people, ravin' mad between disease and destitution; and the first word out of her mouth will be, 'Oh, Catty, how grateful you and I ought to be with our warm roof over us, and our snug fire to sit at,' never thinkin' of who she is and what she has the right to, but just makin' herself the same as _me_. And then she 'd tell me where she was, and what she seen, and how well the people was bearin' up under their trials,--all the things they said to her, for they 'd tell her things they would n't tell the priest. 'Catty,' said she, t' other night, 'it looks like heartlessness in me to be in such high spirits in the midst of all this misery here; but I feel as if my courage was a well that others were drinking out of; and when I go into a cabin, the sick man, as he turns his head round, looks happier, and I feel as if it was my spirit that was warmin' and cheerin' him; and when a poor sick sufferin' child looks up at me and smiles, I 'm ready to drop on my knees and thank God in gratitude.'” Kate covered her face with her hands, and never spoke; and now the old woman, warming with the theme she loved best, went on to tell various incidents and events of Mary's life,--the perilous accidents which befell her, the dangers she braved, the fatigues she encountered. Even recounted by _her_, there was a strange adventurous character that ran through these recitals, showing that Mary Martin, in all she thought and said and acted, was buoyed and sustained by a sort of native chivalry that made her actually court the incidents where she incurred the greatest hazard. It was plain to see what charm such traits possessed for her who recorded them, and how in her old Celtic blood ran the strong current of delight in all that pertained to the adventurous and the wild. “'Tis her own father's nature is strong in her,” said Catty, with enthusiasm. “Show him the horse that nobody could back, tell him of a storm where no fisherman would launch his boat, point out a cliff that no man could climb, and let me see who 'd hould him! She 's so like him, that when there 's anything daring to be done you would n't know her voice from his own. There, now, I hear her without,” cried the old woman, as, rising suddenly, she approached the window. “Don't you hear something?”