Mrs. Bates was very lonely after Nannie went to nurse Dora, but she could not decline so good an offer, and hardly thought of herself as she felt what a nice home it would make for the child. Mrs. Minturn permitted Nannie to go often to see her mother, for she felt a parent's sympathy for the forlorn woman who was bereft of all her children, and she would herself go and sit beside Dora's little crib, when the babe was wakeful, rather than deprive Nannie of her visit to her home. She knew how bitter a thing it was to be separated from the little ones that shed such a halo over the house, and she could easily spare the girl one hour an evening to cheer the lonely and widowed. Dora would object, and cling to the young nurse that she had so soon learned to love; but the clasp would grow weaker and weaker, until the non-resisting form could be placed upon the bed, and Nannie always hastened back before there was any real need. It was a happy hour for her mother and Pat—the one Nannie spent with them. The table was drawn out and the books were upon it, and the low voice read or chatted, and a merry ringing laugh was often heard in the attic—and then Pat would go back with the child to see that she was safe, and woe betide the boy that dared an insulting word or look.

"Wasn't he a brave lad, though?" said Nannie, as she told Biddy about the water, and the beating Pat gave the impudent troop of boys.

Biddy didn't dispute it, but she always went off into some rhapsody about a "bonnie lad she had left in ould Ireland, jist the boy that would be afther breaking the heart of ye, Nannie!"

Nannie had not reached that point yet, though, and was quite as contented watching the sleeping babe, as if there were no such trysting places as sidewalks, and no enamored boys and girls talking over the black railings about an Erin of their own yet to be established in the new country. She knew what it was to love her mother and the dead child, whose memory would never die out of her warm heart, and good Mr. Bond, who had always seemed to her so far above all other mortals—and Pat, too, who was, she thought, the impersonation of all that was beautiful and good; but the "breaking of the heart of ye" was a dead language to her, saving when it referred to some terrible affliction. Don't talk to Nannie about that, yet, Biddy. You're both better off with the kind mistress, and the nice home, and the warmth and comfort all about you, than you would be with a close room and crying children, and a husband who couldn't support you. It isn't the love I'm talking against. Oh! no—thank heaven for that; but wait until you can see the prospect clear for a comfortable living before you enter into a compact that may bring much misery with it, and don't think that to be breaking your hearts after the boys is of more importance than doing your duty in the house of your employers. Nannie is growing to be quite a stout girl, and perhaps Pat has a faint idea that she will make him a good wife one of these days; but she does not dream of it, and only looks upon him as Pat, yet. She never had a brother, so she can not estimate her regard for him as a sister would; indeed she does not care to measure it any way—why should she? the time has not come for this.

Pat looks at her rosy face as she sits across the table reading to them evenings, and he can compare it to nothing excepting the beautiful waxen figure he saw at some museum, a long time ago, and which has haunted him ever since. He paid something for seeing that, but this is a free blessing, which comes to him every evening, and the thoughts of it lightens the toil through the day, and quickens the step homeward. No wonder that he begins to feel that he must some day make sure that it will always be so, and that he studies over it after the light is out and the room is quiet, as he lies musing upon his restless couch. Doesn't he see that she is prettier and prettier every day and doesn't he know that there's many a boy that would be glad to call her "wife;" and isn't he sure there'll be bloody times if any of them attempt to take her from him! And as the sleep gets a faint mastery over him, and he dreams of a tussle with Mike Dugan—all on Nannie's account—the brawny arms strike outward, and the doubled fists come with such force against the innocent plastering, as to bring Mrs. Bates's nightcap to the bedroom door to see if thieves are breaking into the house.