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By Root 1553 0

their heads to, only what sign of grass was left afther the winther, and faith! that’s little. ‘Twas last Tuesday, Lady Day an’ all, me mother was bringin’ in a goaleen o’ turf, an’ he came thundherin’ round the house, and every big rock of English he had he called it to her, and every soort of liar and blagyard —oh, indeed, his conduck was not fit to tell to a jackass —an’ he summonsed her secondly afther that. Ye’d think me mother’d lose her life when she seen the summons, an’ away she legged it into Rosemount to meself, the way I’d spake to the masther to lane heavy on Kenealy the day he’d bring her into coort. ‘An’ indeed,’ says I to the masther, ‘is it to bring me mother into coort!’ says I; ‘sure she’s hardly able to lave the bed,’ says I, ‘an owld little woman that’s not four stone weight! She’s not that size,’ says I—” Mary Holloran measured accurately off the upper joints of her first two fingers—“‘Sure ye’d blow her off yer hand! And Kenealy sayin’ she pelted the pavement afther him, and left a backward sthroke on him with the shovel!’ says I. But, in any case the masther gave no satisfaction to Kenealy, and he arbithrated him the way he wouldn’t be let bring me mother into coort, an’ two shillin’ she paid for threspass, and thank God she’s able to do that same, for as desolate as Kenealy thinks her.”

“Lambert’s a fine arbithrator,” said Norry, dispassionately. “Here, Bid Sal, run away out to the lardher and lave this within in it,” handing over the singed hen, “and afther that, go on out and cut cabbages for the pigs. Divil’s cure to ye! Can’t ye make haste! I suppose ye think it’s to be standin’ lookin’ at the people that ye get four pounds a year an’ yer dite! Thim gerrls is able to put annyone that’d be with them into a decay,” she ended, as Bid Sal reluctantly withdrew, “and there’s not a word ye’ll say but they’ll gallop through the counthry tellin’ it.” Then, dropping into a conversational tone, “Nance was sayin’ Lambert was gone to Dublin agin, but what signifies what the likes of her’d say, it couldn’t be he’d be goin’ in it agin and he not home a week from it.”

Mary Holloran pursed up her mouth portentously.

“Faith he could go in it, and it’s in it he’s gone,” she said, beginning upon a new cup of tea, as dark and sweet as treacle, that Norry had prepared for her. “Ah musha! Lord have mercy on thim that’s gone; ‘tis short till they’re forgotten!”

Norry contented herself with an acquiescing sound, devoid of interrogation, but dreary enough to be encouraging. Mrs. Holloran’s saucer had received half the contents of her cup, and was now delicately poised aloft on the outspread fingers of her right hand, while her right elbow rested on the table according to the etiquette of her class, and Norry knew that the string of her friend’s tongue would loosen of its own accord.

“Seven months last Monday,” began Mary Holloran in the voice of a professional reciter; “seven months since he berrid her, an’ if he gives three more in the widda ye may call me a liar.”

“Tell the truth!” exclaimed Norry, startled out of her self-repression and stopping short in the act of poking the fire. “D’ye tell me it’s to marry again he’d go, an’ the first wife’s clothes on his cook this minnit?”

Mary Holloran did not reveal by look or word the gratification that she felt. “God forbid I’d rise talk or dhraw scandal,” she continued with the same pregnant calm, “but the thruth it is an’ no slandher, for the last month there’s not a week—arrah what week! No, but there’s hardly the day, but a letther goes to the post for—for one you know well, an’ little boxeens and rejestered envelopes an’ all sorts. An’ letthers coming from that one to him to further ordhers! Sure I’d know the writin’. Hav’nt she her name written the size of I don’t know what on her likeness that he have shtuck out on the table.”

Mary Holloran broke off like a number of a serial story, with a carefully interrupted situation, and sipped her tea assiduously. Norry advanced slowly from the fireplace with the poker still clutched in her hand, and her glowing eyes fixed