Mr. Quinn had not greatly bothered about the interior of the house, but Hannah had, and although there were things that needed to be done, there was less than he had imagined.

"I'm going to be married, Hannah!" he said to her soon after he had arrived home.

"Are you, now?" she exclaimed.

"Yes. You remember Mr. Graham?..."

"Ay, poor sowl, I mind him ... the nice-spoken, well-behaved lad he was!..."

"Well, I'm going to marry his sister!"

"It'll be quaren nice to think o' this house havin' a mistress in it again, an' wee weans, mebbe. I was here, a young girl, when your father brought your mother home ... I mind it well ... she was a quiet woman, an' she stud in the hall there as nervous as a child 'til I went forrit to her, an' said, 'Ye're right an' welcome, ma'am!', an' then she plucked up her heart, an' she give me a wee bit of a smile, an' said 'Thank ye, Hannah!' for your father told her who I was. An' she used to come an' talk to me afore you were born ... she was terrible frightened, poor woman. Ay, she was terrible frightened of havin' you! Your father couldn't make her out at all. It was a quare pity!"

He let her ramble on, for he wanted now to hear about his mother, of whom he knew so little. There was a portrait of her in the house, a fair, slight, timid-looking woman who seemed to be shrinking out of the frame. It was odd to think that she was his mother, this frightened woman of whom he had no memory whatever, for whom he had no tender feeling. He had loved his father deeply, but he had no love for his mother. How could he feel love for her? He had never known her!... But now he wanted to know all that Hannah knew about her, for Hannah perhaps had known more about her than any one. Hannah had cared for her, pitied her....

"Yes, Hannah!" he said, so that she might proceed.

"She was sure she was goin' to die, an' I had the quare work to keep her quiet. An' she was terrible feard of dyin'!"

He listened to her with a strange feeling of pain. All that he had endured at the thought of fighting had been endured by his mother at the thought of giving him birth. He felt that now, at last, he knew his mother and could sympathise with her and love her.

"But sure what was the sense of bein' afeard of that," Hannah Went on. "God wouldn't be hard on the like of her, the poor, innocent woman. I toul' lies til her, God forgive me, an' let on to her that people made out that it was worse nor it was to have a child ... but she had a despert bad time of it, for she was a weak woman, with no body in her at all, an' a poor will to suffer things. She never was the better of you!" She smiled at him sadly. "Never! An' she took no interest in nothin' after that ... she could hardly bear to look at you ... an' you her own wee son. She didn't live long after you come, an' mebbe it was as well, for God never made her to contend with anything. I was quaren fond of her. Ye had to like her, she was that helpless. She couldn't thole any one next or near her but myself ... and so I got fond of her, for a body has to like people that depends on them. Will your wife be a fair lady or a dark lady, Master Henry?"

He realised that she wished him to describe Mary to her.

"She's dark," he said. "Not at all like her brother!"

"Ay, he was the big, fair man that was a credit to a woman to have!"

"I have her photograph upstairs," Henry went on, "I'll go and get it. You'd like to see it, wouldn't you?"

"Deed an' I would," she answered.

He got the photograph and gave it to her, and she took it in her hands and looked at it very steadily.

"She's a comely-lookin' girl," she said, handing it to him again. "She has sweet eyes an' a proud way of holdin' her head. She shud be a good wife to you. I'll be glad to see her here, for dear knows, it's lonesome sittin' in the house with no one to look after. I miss your da sore, Master Henry, an' it's seldom you're here now!"

"I'll be here much more in future, Hannah!"

"Well, thank God for that! I like well to see the quality in their houses, an' them not to be runnin' here an' runnin' there, an' not thinkin' of their own place an' their own people. An' I pray to God you'll have fine childher, an' I'll be well-spared to see them growin' up to be a credit to you!"

The old woman's patient service and love seemed very noble to him, and he went to her and took her hand. "You're the only mother I've ever known, Hannah!" he said. "You've always been very good to me!"

"An' why wouldn't I be good to you?" she exclaimed, raising her fine blue eyes to his. "Aren't you the only child I ever had to rear? Dear bless you, son, what else would I be but good to you?"

And suddenly she put her arms about him and kissed him passionately, and as she kissed him, she cried:

"God only knows what I'm girnin' for!" she exclaimed, releasing him and drying her eyes.