An Enduring Heart - Page 2

him, as his way was, about emigrants from this place and that, and at
last, "Did you ever hear of the miller's daughter from Innis Rath?" and
he named the woman he was looking for. "Oh yes," said the other, "she
is married to a friend of mine, John MacEwing. She lives at such-and-
such a street in Chicago." Doran went to Chicago and knocked at her
door. She opened the door herself, and was "not a bit changed." He gave
her his real name, which he had taken again after his grandfather's
death, and the name of the man he had met in the train. She did not
recognize him, but asked him to stay to dinner, saying that her husband
would be glad to meet anybody who knew that old friend of his. They
talked of many things, but for all their talk, I do not know why, and
perhaps he did not know why, he never told her who he was. At dinner he
asked her about Byrne, and she put her head down on the table and began
to cry, and she cried so he was afraid her husband might be angry. He
was afraid to ask what had happened to Byrne, and left soon after,
never to see her again.

When the old man had finished the story, he said, "Tell that to Mr.
Yeats, he will make a poem about it, perhaps." But the daughter said,
"Oh no, father. Nobody could make a poem about a woman like that."
Alas! I have never made the poem, perhaps because my own heart, which
has loved Helen and all the lovely and fickle women of the world, would
be too sore. There are things it is well not to ponder over too much,
things that bare words are the best suited for.

1902.