"Arrah, Moya," said he, "what brings you out of your bed so early?"

"Och musha, I dunna," replied the old woman; "I was so uneasy all
night that I could not sleep a wink, and I got up to smoke a blast,
thinkin' that it might drive away the weight that's on my heart."

"And what ails you, Moya? Are you sick, or what came over you?"

"No, the Lord be praised! I am not sick, but my heart is sore, and
there's a load on my spirits that would kill a hundred."

"Maybe you were dreaming, or something that way," said the man,
in a bantering tone, and suspecting, from the old woman's grave
manner, that she was labouring under some mental delusion.

"Dreaming!" reechoed Moya, with a bitter sneer; "ay, dreaming.
Och, I wish to God I was ONLY DREAMING; but I am very much afraid
it is worse than that, and that there is trouble and misfortune
hanging over uz."

"And what makes you think so, Moya?" asked he, with a half-suppressed
smile.

Moya, aware of his well-known hostility to every species of
superstition, remained silent, biting her lips and shaking her gray
head prophetically.

"Why don't you answer me, Moya?" again asked the man.