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“Why, yes. I guess so. I don’t know much about umbrellas we need them so seldom in California. But the rubbers—I’ll look under the seat. I can, easier than you. I’m young—smaller, I mean.”

“Not so much smaller, me dear, though younger by some fifty-odd year I’ve no doubt. Bless your bonny face! Found them ye have. Thank you, me child, and wait—here’s a reward for your goodness, be sure. Sit by till you eat it. ’Twould do me old heart good, so being it aches like a grumblin’ tooth the now. Leavin’ Barney and the nice wife and the bairns, as I have. Crossin’ this big counthry all by my lone; and after that the ocean; an’ all that long way just to look upon old Ireland once more and them in it I hold so dear. Barney’s but one; in Ireland are three. One is a nun and cannot; one is a priest and will not; and one is a wife and must not come over to me in this purty land of Ameriky. Was ever in old Ireland, me dear?”

Almost unconsciously Jessica had obeyed the old lady’s invitation to share the wide seat with herself and had smilingly accepted the half of a mint drop which her new acquaintance offered.