Friend, assuredly, for friendship was not a thing of time, but hearts
alike, and they had turned together with the first look.
So they sat a while, these two from the ends of the earth, and the warm
Irish heart cleared itself of tears, like April weather, to come up
laughing in another moment.
"An' to think ye niver told us your name, asthore!" she said, wiping
her eyes; "nor yer home place! Were ye raised in this post av
haythins?"
"Maren Le Moyne of Grand Portage. My father--was a smith."
"Of Grand Portage! An' ye are so far inland! I am Sheila O'Halloran, av
all Oirland, an' wife to Terence th' same,--yer fri'nd for always,
asthore, f'r niver will I be forgettin' this time!"
She turned to the fair woman, smiling and alight.
"Did ye iver dhrame av such romance, my dear?" she asked. "An' isn't it
just wonderful to find a real live heroine in th' wilderness?"
The woman was toying with a bunch of grass, winding the slim green
blades around her pale fingers, and she looked back with peculiar
straightness.
"It is all very wonderful, Sheila, and commands admiration, of course;
but, for my part, a strange woman alone on the rivers with a party of
men must have something beside her own word to vouch for her before I
should take her in with open arms.
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