On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very much beauty—the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything—

And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.

Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others.

Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.

And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music.

Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid as to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that land felt richer than Moira when she began her dreaming.

Of late, her dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance, lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and away westward with it, away like a bird in far flight.

Beyond that golden horizon of heaving sea was everything one could possibly want; Moira had heard that when she was a tiny girl. America, the States, they were words that opened fairy doors.

Father Murphy had told her much about that world beyond the sea. He had visited it once; had spent six weeks with his sister who had married and settled on a farm in the state of Ohio. His sister's husband had all sorts of new-fangled machinery for plowing and seeding, and for his reaping! And Father Murphy had told her of the free library that was in the town near his sister's home, where he could sit all day and read to his heart's content.

Father Murphy (he had spent three whole days in New York) had made her see the great buildings that were like granite giants towering over and walling in the pigmy humanity that beat against their sides like the rise and fall of the tide; he told her of the rush and roar of the streets and of the trains that tore over one's head.

And he told her of the loveliness that was there in picture and music. Moira, listening, quivering with the longing to be fine and to do fine things, could always see it all just as though magic hands swept aside those miles of ocean dividing that land of marvel from her Ireland.

That was why it was so simple to let her dream-mind climb up and away westward. Her eyes, staring into the paling blue, saw beautiful things and her thoughts revelled in delicious fancies.

That slender, gold crowned bit of a cloud—that was Destiny circling her globe, weaving, and moulding, and shaping; Moira O'Donnell's own humble thread was on her loom! And Destiny's face was turned westward. Moira saw shining towers and thronged streets and fields greener than her own. Far-off music sounded in her ears as though the world off there just sang with gladness. And it was waiting for her—her. She saw herself moving forward to it all with quick step and head high, going to a beautiful goal. Sometimes that goal was a palace-place, encircled by brilliant flowers, sometimes a farm like Father Murphy's sister's and a husband who worked with marvelous contrivances, sometimes a free library with all the books one could want, sometimes a dim, vaulted space through which echoed exquisite music—

She so loved that make-believe Moira, moving forward toward glowing things, that she cried aloud: "That's me! Me!" And of course her voice broke the spell—the dream vanished; there was nothing left but the fleecy cloud, the meadow lark's song, close by.

There was just time enough before her grandmother needed her, to run down to Father Murphy's. She knew at this hour she would find him by his wide doorstep. Fleetly, her bare feet scarcely touching the soft earth, she covered the distance to his house. She ran up behind him and slipped her fingers over his half-closed eyes.

He knew the familiar touch of the girl's hands. He patted them with his own and moved aside on his bench that she might sit down with him.

"Father," she said, very low, her eyes shining. "It's my dream again."

The old priest did not chide her for idling, as her grandmother would have done. The old priest dreamed, too.

"Tell me," she went on. "Can one go to school over there as long as one likes? Is it too grown-up I am to learn more things from books?"

The old Father told her one could never be too old to learn from books. He loved her craving for knowledge. Had he not taught her himself, since she was twelve? He looked at her proudly.

"Father!" She whispered now, and the rose flush deepened in her face. "It's Danny Lynch that comes every evening to see me."

Now Father Murphy turned squarely and regarded her with startled eyes. This slip of a girl was the most precious colleen in his flock.

"And, Father, it's of America he talks all the time!"

The old priest shivered as though from a chill. Sensing his feeling, Moira caught his hand quickly and held it in a close grip.

"But if I go away it's not forgetting you I'll be! Oh, who in all this world has been a better friend to Moira O'Donnell? Who has taught Moira but you?"

"Child—"

"Sure it's grown-up I am! See!" She sprang to her feet and stood slimly erect. "See?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes. And your old priest had not noticed. Moira—" he caught her arm, leaned forward and peered into her face as though to see through it into her soul. "Moira, girl, is it courage I have taught ye? And honor? And faith?"

Her heart was singing now over the secret she had shared with him. Who would not have courage and faith when one was so happy? With a lift of her shoulders, a tilt of her head, she shrugged away his seriousness.

"If you could only see me, Father, as I am in my dream. Oh, it's beautiful I am! And smart! And rich!"

"Not money," broke in the priest with a ring of contempt.

"Sure, no, not money! But fine things. Oh, Father," she clasped her hands childishly. "It's fine things I want. The very finest in the world! And I want my Danny to want them, too."

"Fine things," he repeated slowly. "And will ye know the fine things from the dross, child? That wealth is more times what ye give, aye, than what ye get? It's rich ye are of your fine things if the heart of you is unselfish—"

"What talk, you, Father; it's like the croaking frogs in the Widow Finnegan's pond you are! But, sh-h-h, I will tell you what I saw, as real as real, as I lay dreaming—Destiny herself, as fine as you please, sailing to the new world, a-spinning on her loom. She had Moira O'Donnell's poor thread and who knows, Father Murphy, but maybe this minute it's a-spinning it with a thread of gold she is!" The girl's eyes danced. "Ah, 'tis nonsense I talk, for it's a dream it was, but my poor heart's so light it hurts—here."

The old man laid a trembling hand upon her head. Under his touch it bowed with quick reverence but not before she had seen a mistiness in the kindly eyes.

"It's God's blessing I ask for ye—and yes, may your dream come true—"

"Your blessing for Danny, too," whispered Moira.

"For the both of ye!"

"Sure it's a crossing Granny'll be a-giving me and no blessing," laughed the girl. It was her own word for Granny's sharp tongue. "I'd best be off, Father dear."

"Wait." The old man disappeared through his door. Presently he came out carrying a small box. From this he took a crumpled package. Unwrapping the tissue folds he revealed, in the cup of his hand, a string of green beads.

"Oh! Oh! How beautiful!" cried the girl. "Are they for me?" with the youthful certainty that all lovely things were her due.

"Yes. To remember my blessing." He regarded them fondly, lifted them that she might see their beauty against the sun's glow. "'Twas in a little shop in London I found the pretty things."

Moira knew how much he must love them as a keepsake—that visit to London was only next in his heart to the trip to America. She caught his hands, beads, tissue wrappings and all.

"Oh, it's precious they are! And you too!"

The Father fastened them over the girl's shabby dress. "They are only beads," he admonished. "But it's of this day they'll remind you."

He watched Moira as she ran off down the lane. He noted the quick, sure tread of her feet, the challenging poise of her head. "Colleen—" he whispered with a smile. "Little colleen." He turned to his door and his lips, even though they still twisted in a smile, moved as though in prayer.

"And may God keep pure the dream in the heart of ye!"