But this feeling vanished at once from the breast of Mrs.and Mr.Hobbs, when they saw the girl stop where a turn of the road brought the gate before her eyes; and for the first time, they perceived, what the worn cloak had hitherto concealed, that the poor young thing bore an infant in her arms.

She halted, she gazed fondly back.

Even at that instant the despair of her eyes was visible; and then, as she pressed her lips to the infant's brow, they heard a convulsive sob--they saw her turn away, and she was gone! "Well, I declare!" said Mrs.Hobbs.
"News for the parish," said Mr.Hobbs; "and she so young too!--what a shame!" "The girls about here are very bad nowadays, Jenny," said the mother to the bride.
"I see now why she wanted Mr.Butler," quoth Hobbs, with a knowing wink--"the slut has come to swear!" And it was for this that Alice had supported her strength--her courage-during the sharp pangs of childbirth; during a severe and crushing illness, which for months after her confinement had stretched her upon a peasant's bed (the object of the rude but kindly charity of an Irish shealing)--for this, day after day, she had whispered to herself, "I shall get well, and I will beg my way to the cottage, and find him there still, and put my little one into his arms, and all will be bright again;"-- for this, as soon as she could walk without aid, had she set out on foot from the distant land; for this, almost with a dog's instinct (for she knew not what way to turn--what county the cottage was placed in; she only knew the name of the neighbouring town; and that, populous as it was, sounded strange to the ears of those she asked; and she had often and often been directed wrong),--for this, I say, almost with a dog's faithful instinct, had she, in cold and heat, in hunger and in thirst, tracked to her old master's home her desolate and lonely way! And thrice had she over-fatigued herself--and thrice again been indebted to humble pity for a bed whereon to lay a feverish and broken frame.

And once, too, her baby--her darling, her life of life, had been ill--had been near unto death, and she could not stir till the infant (it was a girl) was well again, and could smile in her face and crow.

And thus many, many months had elapsed, since the day she set out on her pilgrimage, to that on which she found its goal.