with something of its own glee. Winifred was in the old courtyard feeding some chickens, gray and speckled and white, with crumbs of oaten bread and a bowlful of grain. She was laughing gaily at their antics and talking to the fowls by name: "No, Aileen Mor! You're too greedy: you're swallowing everything. Gray Mary, you haven't got anything. Here's a bit for you. No, no, bantam Mike, you can't have any more; let the hens eat something!" The large speckled fowl that Winifred had first addressed stalked majestically to and fro, snatching from its weaker brethren every available morsel; while the little ones ran in and out, struggling and fighting in the most unseemly manner over the food Winifred let fall. The child, on seeing me, nodded gaily. "See," she said, "how they fight for their food! They're worse even than children!" Then she added in her pretty, inquiring way, with the soft modulation peculiar to the district: "I suppose, now, there are a great many fowls in America?" "Oh, yes!" I replied—"fowls of every sort. I think you will have to come to America some time and see for yourself." A flush passed over her face, making it rosy red; then she said, with the curiously imperious manner which I had so often before noticed: [Pg 41] [Pg 41] "I am going there some time: I have to go." She turned once more to the chickens, silently this time; and her manner, as plainly as possible, forbade me to question her. No child had ever impressed me in this way before. It was not that she was unchildlike nor what might be called old-fashioned; but she had that about her which was partly the effect, no doubt, of the peculiar deference with which she was treated by the blind woman and by Niall the wanderer. "I suppose I may see Granny?" I remarked; and she answered: "Oh, yes! She will be very glad. She is always in there near the hearth." I was glad that Winifred showed no disposition at the moment to abandon her occupation of feeding the fowls; for I wanted to have at least a few words with good Mrs. Meehan on the subject of Winifred's association with the grotesque personage whom local tradition seemed to invest with unusual if not unholy powers. I
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