full of women. Several of them sobbed loudly.... Johnny Madden sat on the table, eating a piece of bread thickly spread with molasses. On seeing Jeremiah the women were suddenly silent. Jeremiah swayed and leaned against the door. 

 The small Cecilia heard him and came from the bedroom. 

 "Paw," she said, "I'll do all I kin fer yuh. I always will.... She was happy. She sez as how she seen green fields an' rain."  Jeremiah took her in his arms. He hid his face against her thin little shoulder. His shook. Cecilia was very quiet. She had not cried. She looked over her father's head at the roomful of gaping women. Something flashed across her face. Her teeth set. 

 "She always wanted a bunnit with pink roses on it," said Cecilia.  "I don't see why Gawd didn't give her jest one." 

 The man sobbed convulsively and Cecilia remembered him.  "She was happy," Cecilia said in a less assured tone.  "She sez as how she seen green fields with rain on 'em like Ireland." 

 CHAPTER II THE VISION OF A PROMISED LAND 

 As Mrs. Madden had said, "The kids that grow up better than their folks go to the devil."  Cecilia felt this at eleven, for she was all of Johnny's mother, and the role was a difficult one. She had learned to spat him and kiss him judiciously, and at the proper times. She had learned to understand his marble games and to coax him into attendance at Catechism. 

 Cecilia had begun to understand a great many things at eleven that some of us never understand. One thing made learning easy for her,—she loved so greatly that she was often submerged into the loved, and so saw their viewpoint. 

 "Paw," said Cecilia. She had turned about on the piano stool, and Jeremiah looked up from his paper.  "Well?" he questioned. 

 "I been thinking," she said, "that it would be genteel to ask the priest to supper. It ain't as though we hadn't a hired girl to do fer us, an' it would be polite." 

 "That's so, that's so," said Jeremiah. He laid aside his paper.  "You're like your maw," he added. Cecilia knew he was pleased. She smiled happily. 

 "An' have ice-cream?" suggested the interested Jeremiah. 

 "Yes," said Cecilia, "an' chicken, an' fried potatoes, an' waffles, an' of course pie, an' 

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