“India!” repeated the girl confusedly. “Sure I know no one out there!”
“Oh, yes, me darlin’, ye know _wan_,” replied Mrs. Flynn, with a significant nod. “I can’t say if it’s in his writing, for the Castle letters does not come this way.”
Mary made no reply; she tucked the parcel under her arm, and saying, “Good evening to ye kindly, Mrs. Flynn,” stepped forth.
Poor disappointed Mrs. Flynn remained staring after her, till a turn in the road hid her figure from sight. Subsequently she told a neighbour that “Mary Foley was getting a bit crabbed in herself, and looked like a girl that had something on her _mind_.”
Mary desired to be alone, and far away from every human eye, when she opened her parcel; she felt instinctively that it came from Mr. Ulick; he and she had often talked of books; he had offered to lend her several; he knew that she was a great reader. Anyhow, this book was a sign that he was thinking of her still. She crossed several fields by a narrow footpath, and at last, at the back of a stile, rarely used, halted and proceeded to investigate her treasure. She studied the writing, the cover, the stamps; finally she cut the string with her excellent white teeth, and a little volume of poetry was disclosed--_Songs of the Glens of Antrim_.
Then she sat down in the long grass, and began to examine it carefully. No name was inscribed within. As she turned over the pages with hasty, tremulous fingers, she came to one, on which was scrawled, in pencil, the word “Mary.” Below ran the title: “I mind the day.”
“I mind the day. I wish I was a say-gull flying far, For then I’d fly and find you in the West; And I wish I was a little rose--as sweet as roses are, For then you’d maybe wear it on your breast.
I wish I could be living near to love you day and night, To let no trouble touch you, or annoy, I wish I could be dyin’ here to rise a spirit light, If them above ’ud let me win you joy.
And now I wish no wishes, nor ever fall a tear; Nor take a thought beyond the way I’m led: I mind the day that’s overby, and bless the day that’s near, Then be to come--a day, when we’ll be dead; A longer, lighter day, when we’ll be dead.”
Mary read this quickly, with a catch in her breath; then slowly; finally with eyes so dim, that she could scarcely distinguish the words, and her tears pattered down upon the pages.