"Who takes care of her?" "Who? Well, as for that, she mostly takes care of herself," replied the landlord, with a gesture expressive of the hopelessness of the situation. "But she can't live alone. She has, I believe, a grandmother." [Pg 15] [Pg 15] The landlord gave me a queer look. "Oh, she lives with Granny Meehan, as you'll see when you go there! But she's gettin' restive below. I hear her feet patterin' round, and it's hard to tell what she might be at, so I'd better be goin' down." "Say I'm just coming!" I called after the man; and, descending presently, looked out of doors, and saw, sitting in the branches of a lilac tree, the same figure that I had beheld upon the bough which stretched over the ravine. The landlord, honest man, was addressing the girl, with some anxiety, from the window below. "Come down here, now—that's a good child!—or you'll be gettin' a fall, so you will; and a nasty cut on your head for the doctor to sew up—and breakin' my fence into the bargain." The child laughed, that selfsame musical laugh which rang out upon the air like the sound of bells, and she shook the tree in her mirth, and sent a shower of the fragrant lilac blossoms down upon my head. "I ask you pardon!" she said, with a shade of gravity crossing her face. "I didn't mean to send any down upon your bonnet, for a beautiful bonnet it is." She eyed as she spoke the article of headgear which I had purchased at a shop on Fifth Avenue, New York. I was surprised that she should have perceived any beauty in the bonnet, it being quiet in shape and neutral in tint, to suit the exigencies of travel. When she had descended to the ground, she picked up a cloak from under the tree and wrapped herself in it. It was one of those peasant's cloaks of blue cloth, enveloping the figure from head to foot, which, as articles of dress, are fast disappearing from Ireland; but which were both [Pg 16]becoming and picturesque. Winifred did not, however, put up the hood; but showed her delicately formed head, with its
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