A woman of the Joyce country, it was, waiting up on Christmas Eve to see the Virgin, that heard the tune from her for the first time and taught it to the country. It's often I heard discourse about her, and I a growing girl. Maire of the Virgin was the name they gave her. It's said that it's often she saw the glorious Virgin. She died in the poor-house in Uachtar Ard a couple of years before I was married. The blessing of God be with the souls of the dead.

Amen, O Lord, say the other women.

But Maire did not speak. She and her two big grey eyes were going, as you would say, through old Una's forehead, and she telling the story. She spoke after a spell.

Are you sure, Una, that the Virgin and her Child come into the houses on Christmas Eve? says she.

As sure as I'm living.

Did you ever see her?

I did not, then. But the Christmas Eve after I was married I waited up to see her, if it would be granted me. A cloud of sleep fell on me. Some noise woke me, and when I opened my eyes I thought I saw, as it would be, a young woman and a child in her arms going out the door.

No one spoke for a long time. Nothing was heard in the house but the drone of the spinning-wheels and the crackling of the fire, and the chirping of the crickets. Maire got up.

I'll be shortening the road, says she.May God give you good night, women.

God speed you, Maire, they answered together.

She drew-to the door on herself.

There was, as it would be, a blaze of fire in that woman's heart, and she going the road home in the blackness of night. The great longing of her soul was plundering and desolating her—the longing for children. She had been married four years, and hadn't clann. It's often she would spend the hours on her knees, praying God to send her a child. It's often she would rise from the bed in the night-time, and go on her two naked knees on the cold, hard stone making the same petition. It's many a penance she used put on herself in hopes that the torture of her body would soften God's heart. It's often when her man would be from home, that she would go to sleep without dinner and without supper. Once or twice, when her man was asleep, she left the bed and went out and stood a long while under the dew of the night sending her prayer to the dark, lonesome skies. Once she drew blood from her shoulder-blades with blows she gave herself with a switch. Another time she stuck thorns into her flesh in memory of the crown of thorns that went on the brow of the Saviour. The penances and the heart-scald were preying on her health. Nobody guessed what was wrong with her. Her own husband—a decent, kindly man—didn't understand the story right, though it's often he would hear her in the night talking to herself as a mother would be talking to a child, when she would feel its hand or its mouth at her breast. Ah! it's many a woman hugs her heart and whispers in the dead time of night to the child that isn't born, and will not be.

Maire thought long until Christmas Eve came. But as there's a wearing on everything, so there was a wearing on the delay of that time. The day of Christmas Eve was tedious to her until evening came. She swept the floor of the house, and she cleaned the chairs, and she made up a good fire before going to sleep. She left the door on the latch, and she put a tall, white candle in the window. When she stretched herself beside her man it wasn't to sleep it was, but to watch. She thought her man would never sleep. She felt at last by the quiet breath he was drawing that he was gone off. Then she got up. She put on her dress, and she stole out to the kitchen. No one was there. Not even a mouse was stirring. The crickets themselves were asleep. The fire was in red ashes. The candle was shining brightly. She bent on her knees in the room door. It's sweet the calm of the house was to her in the middle of the night, though, I tell you, it was terrible. There came a heightening of mind on her as it used to come betimes in the chapel, and she going to receive communion from the priest's hands. She felt, somehow, that the Presence wasn't far from her, and that it wouldn't be long until she would hear a footstep. She listened patiently. The house itself, she thought, and what was in it both living and dead, was listening as well. The hills were listening, and the stones of the earth, and the starry stars of the sky.

She heard a sound. A footstep on the door-flag. She saw a young woman coming in and a child in her arms. The young woman drew up to the fire. She sat down on a chair. She began crooning, very low, to the child. Maire recognised the music. The tune that was on it was the .

A while to them like that. The woman hugging the child to her breast, and crooning, very sweetly, very softly. Maire on her two knees, under the shadow of the door. It wasn't in her to speak nor to move. She was barely able to draw her breath.

At last the woman rose. It's then Maire rose. She went hither to the woman.

A Mhuire, says she, whispering-like.

The woman turned her countenance towards her. A lovely, noble countenance it was.

A Mhuire, says Maire again. I have a request of you.

Say it, says the other woman.

A child drinking the milk of my breast, says Maire. Don't deny me, a Mhuire.