experience did not dispose her to gainsay this
proposition, and she was nevertheless disinclined to be mollified by it,
she likewise had recourse to generalities, and said:

"'Deed then it's welcome anybody is to stop away if they're wishful,
hindered or no. Long sorry I'd be to have people disthressin' themselves
streelin' after _me_." And she added, rather inconsistently, the remark
already mentioned: "But the likes of this place I never witnessed. You
might as well be livin' at the bottom of the blackest ould boghoule
there, for e'er a chance you have to be seein' a bit of company."

"And it's yourself 'ud make the fine sizeable waterask, ma'am," a
high-pitched voice said suddenly from within doors, causing Mrs. M'Gurk
to start and peer into the dark opening behind her, somewhat taken aback
at finding that she had had an unsuspected audience, which is always
more or less of a shock. The first object she descried through the hazy
dusk was the figure of the old woman known to Lisconnel as Ody
Rafferty's aunt, but in fact so related to his father, sitting with her
short black dudeen by the delicate pink and white embers, for the
evening was warm and the fire low. Ody himself was leaning against the
wall, critically examining Brian Kilfoyle's blackthorn, and forming a
poor opinion of it with considerable satisfaction. Not that he bore
Brian any ill-will, but because this is his method of attaining to
contentment with his own possessions.

"Whethen now and is it yourself that's in it, Ody Rafferty?" said Mrs.
M'Gurk, as she recognised him. "And what talk have you out of you about
waterasks? You're the great man, bedad."

"Me aunt's lookin' in on Mrs. Kilfoyle, ma'am," said Ody, "be raison of
Brian bein' off to the Town. And right enough you and me knows what's
took him there; and so does Norah Finegan. Och, good luck to the pair of
thim."

"Coortin'," said his aunt, who preferred to put things briefly and
clearly. "But I was tellin' Mrs. Kilfoyle to not be frettin', for sure
God is good, and they'll be apt to keep her in it all's one."

"Goodness may pity you, woman," said Mrs. M'Gurk. "Brian 'ud as lief
take and bring home a she _hyenna_, and it ravin' mad, as anybody 'ud
look crooked at his mother, I very well know."

"Norah's a rael dacint little slip of a girl," Mrs. Kilfoyle said
tranquilly, considering that her son's character needed no certificate.
But the old woman only grunted doubtfully, and said: "Och,