The prophet's wife and Mave exchanged looks as the woman spoke: and the latter said:
“I hope you don't think there's any evil before me.”
“Who is there,” replied the stranger, “that can say there's not? Sure it's before us and about us every hour in the day; but in your case, darlin', I jist say, be on your guard, an' don't trust or put belief in any one that you don't know well. That's all I can say, an' indeed all I know.”
“I feel thankful to you,” replied Mave; “and now that you wish me well, (for I'm sure you do,) maybe you'd grant me a favor?”
“If it is widin the bounds of my power, I'll do it,” returned the other; “but it's little I can do, God help me.”
“Nelly,” said Mave, “will you go on to the cross-roads there, an' I'll be with you in a minute.”
The cross-roads alluded to were only a couple of hundred yards before them. The prophet's wife proceeded, and Mave renewed the conversation.
“What I want you to do for me is this--that is if you can do it--maybe you could bring a couple of stones of meal to a family of the name of--of--” here she blushed again, and her confusion became so evident that she felt it impossible to proceed until she had recovered in some degree her composure. “Only two or three years agone,” she continued, “they were the daicentest farmers in the parish; but the world went against them as it has of late a'most against every one, owing to the fall of prices, and now they're out of their farm, very much reduced, and there's sickness amongst them, as well as want. They've been living,” she proceeded, wiping away the tears which were now fast flowing, “in a kind of cabin or little cottage not far from the fine house an' place that was not long ago their own. Their name,” she added, after a pause in which it was quite evident that she struggled strongly with her feelings, “is--is--Dal-ton.”
“O was the young fellow one of them,” asked the woman, “that was so outrageous awhile ago in the miser's? I think I heard the name given to him.”
“Oh, I have nothing to say for him,” replied Mave; “he was always wild, but they say never bad-hearted; it's the rest of the family I'm thinking about--and even that young man isn't more than three or four days up out o' the fever. What I want you to do is to bring the male I'm spakin' of to that family; any one will show you their little place; an' to leave it there about dusk this evenin', so that no one will ever know that you do it; an' as you love God an' hope for mercy, don't breathe my name in the business at all.”