She had only knocked a second time when the door was opened, and having folded up her beads, she put them into her bosom, and entering the priest's house, immediately found herself in the kitchen.

In a moment a middle-aged woman, with a rush light in her hand, stirred up the greeshough, and raking the live turf out of it, she threw on a dozen well-dried peats out of the chimney corner, and soon had a comfortable and blazing fire, at which the afflicted creature, having first intimated her wish that his reverence should accompany her home, was desired to sit until he should be ready to set out.
"Why, then," exclaimed the good-natured woman, "but you had abitther thramp of it this cowld and cuttin' mornin'-- and a cowld and cuttin' mornin' it is--for sure didn't I feel as if the very nose was whipt off o' me when I only wint to open the door for you.

Sit near the fire, achora, and warm yourself--throth myself feels like a sieve, the way the cowld's goin' through me;--sit over, achora, sit over, and get some heat into you." "Thank you," said the woman, "but you know it's not a safe thing to go near the fire when one is frozen or very cowld--'twould only make me worse when I go out again, besides givin' me pain now." "Och, troth you're right, I forgot that--but you surely didn't come far, if one's to judge by your dress; though, God knows, far or near, you have the light coverin' an you for such a morning as this is, the Lord be praised!" "I came better than three miles," replied the woman.
"Than what ?" "Than three miles." "Saver above, is it possible! without cloak or bonnet, shoe or stockin'-- an' you have your affliction at home, too, poor thing; why the Lord look down an you, an' pity you I pray his blessed name this day! Stop, I must warm you a drink of brave new milk, and that'll help to put the cowld out of your heart--sit round here, from the breath of that back door--I'll have it ready for you in a jiffey; throth will I, an' you'll see it'll warm you and do you good." "God help me," exclaimed the woman, "I'll take the drink, bekase I wouldn't refuse your kind heart; but it's not meat, nor drink, nor cowld, nor storm, that's throublin' me--I could bear all that, and many a time did--but then I had _him!_ but now who's to comfort us--who are we to look to--who is to be our friend?
Oh, in the wide world--but God is good!"-- said she, checking herself from a pious apprehension that she was not sufficiently submissive to his will, "God is good--but still it's hard to think of losing him." "Well, you won't lose him, I hope," said the good creature, stirring the new milk with a spoon, and tasting it to ascertain if it was warm enough--"Of coorse it's your husband you--whitch! whitch!--the divil be off you for a skillet, I've a'most scalded myself wid you--it's so thin that it has a thing boilin' before you could say Jack Robinson.

Here now, achora, try it, an' take care it's not a trifle too hot--it'll comfort you, anyhow." It is in a country like Ireland, where there is so much of that close and wasting poverty which constitutes absolute misery, that these beautiful gushes of pure and tender humanity are to be found, which spring in the obscurity of life out of the natural goodness and untutored piety of the Irish heart.

It is these virtues, unseen and unknown, as they generally are, except by the humble individuals on whom they are exerted--that so often light up by their radiance the darkness and destitution of the cold and lowly cabin, and that gives an unconscious sense of cheerfulness under great privations, which those who do not know the people often attribute to other and more discreditable causes.
While the poor woman in question was drinking the warm milk--the very best restorative by the way which she could get--for poverty is mostly forced to find out its own humble comforts--Father Roche entered the kitchen, buttoned up and prepared for the journey.