great ark of refuge, and seemed to her in her half-dazed condition
not only a reminder, but almost a message from home. She had then
no thought of ever seeing the owner; she says she felt only that she
should like to die quietly on anything marked 'Salem, Mass.' Go in
to see her presently, Penelope, and make up your own mind about her.
See if you can persuade her to--to--well, to give us up. Try to get
her out of the notion of being our maid. She is so firm; I never
saw so feeble a person who could be so firm; and what in the world
shall we do with her if she keeps on insisting, in her nervous
state?"

"My idea would be," I suggested, "to engage her provisionally, if we
must, not because we want her, but because her heart is weak. I
shall tell her that we do not feel like leaving her behind, and yet
we ourselves cannot be detained in Dublin indefinitely; that we will
try the arrangement for a month, and that she can consider herself
free to leave us at any time on a week's notice."

"I approve of that," agreed Francesca, "because it makes it easier
to dismiss her in case she turns out to be a Massachusetts Borgia.
You remember, however, that we bore with the vapours and vagaries,
the sighs and moans of Jane Grieve in Pettybaw, all those weeks, and
not one of us had the courage to throw off her yoke. Never shall I
forget her at your wedding, Penelope; the teardrop glistened in her
eye as usual; I think it is glued there! Ronald was sympathetic,
because he fancied she was weeping for the loss of you, but on
inquiry it transpired that she was thinking of a marriage in that
'won'erfu' fine family in Glasgy,' with whose charms she had made us
all too familiar. She asked to be remembered when I began my own
housekeeping, and I told her truthfully that she was not a person