"Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her." And as I closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her, she was quite composed; only for the white cheek and the black dress, you would not know that the burning feel of a child's last kiss had ever touched her lips.
My father's wife mourned for him after another fashion. _She_ could not sit quiet, she must work hard to keep the life in them to whom he gave it; and it was only in the evenings when she sat down before the fire with Mary in her arms, that she used to sob and rock herself to and fro, and sing a low, wailing keen for the father of the little one, whose innocent tears were always ready to fall when she saw her mother cry. About this time my mother got an offer from some of the hucksters in the neighborhood, who knew her honesty, to go three times a week to the next market-town, ten miles off, with their little money, and bring them back supplies of bread, groceries, soap, and candles. This she used to do, walking the twenty miles--ten of them with a heavy load on her back--for the sake of earning enough to keep us alive. 'Twas very seldom that Richard could get a stroke of work to do: the boy wasn't strong in himself, for he had the sickness too; though he recovered from it, and always did his best to earn an honest penny wherever he could. I often wanted my mother to let me go in her stead and bring back the load; but she never would hear of it, and kept me at home to mind the house and little Mary. My poor pet lamb! 'twas little minding she wanted. She would go after breakfast and sit at the door, and stop there all day, watching for her mother, and never heeding the neighbors' children that used to come wanting her to play. Through the live-long hours she would never stir, but just keep her eyes fixed on the lonesome _boreen_;[I] and when the shadow of the mountain-ash grew long, and she caught a glimpse of her mother ever so far off, coming toward home, the joy that would flush on the small, patient face, was brighter than the sunbeam on the river. And faint and weary as the poor woman used to be, before ever she sat down, she'd have Mary nestling in her bosom. No matter how little she might have eaten herself that day, she would always bring home a little white bun for Mary; and the child, that had tasted nothing since morning, would eat it so happily, and then fall quietly asleep in her mother's arms.