overty and starvation--had been as dear as life. She
had suffered all those pangs of dissolution that assail the home-loving
Irish when they have to leave what association has made dear to them;
for, with the Irish, familiarity does not breed contempt but affection.

She suffered these same miseries now. She saw her home through tears of
regret, though unhappiness had driven her from it. And her lips were set
in a determination never to return to Cregan, though her chin trembled
with pity of herself in the determination.

Some distance behind her came a smaller woman, as shrunken, as withered,
and as yellow as an old leaf. Even her shoes seemed to have dried and
shriveled, curling up at the toes. And she fluttered along in the light
morning breeze, holding back against it, on her heels, with an odd
effect of being carried forward faster than she wished to go.

She was Mrs. Byrne, from the floor below Mrs. Cregan's flat, and she had
been starting out on a secret errand of her own when she heard the
quarrel overhead and stopped to hear the end of it. There was something
guilty in her manner, and she was evidently struggling between her
desire to reach the next street unseen by Mrs. Cregan and her desire to
know what had happened in the Cregan flat. Her curiosity proved the
stronger.

She let the wind blow her alongside her friend's portly despair. She
said, in the hoarse whisper that was all she had left of her voice: "Is
it yerself, Missus Cregan? Yuh're off to choorch early this mornin'."

Mrs. Cregan looked around, blinking to clear her eyes. "Choorch?" she
said, on the plaintiveness of a high note that broke in her throat.

"Yuh're cryin', woman!". Her look of craftiness had changed at once to
one of startled distress. "Come back out o' this with yuh." She caught
Mrs. Cregan's arm. "It's no thing to be doin' on the street! Come back,
now. Where're yuh goin'?"

Mrs. Cregan marched stolidly ahead and carried her neighbor with her.
"I've quit 'm."

"Quit who?"

"Himsilf.... Dinny."

Mrs. Byrne expressed her emotion and showed her tact by silently
compressing her lips.

"I've quit 'im, fer good an' all." She stroked a tear down her cheek
with a thick forefinger. "I'll niver go back. Niver!"

"Come away with yuh, Mary Cregan," Mrs. Byrne cried, in her breathy
huskiness. "At _your_ age! Faith, yuh're as flighty as one o' them girls
with the pink silk petticoats. He's yer husban', ain't he? D'yuh think
yuh wer