le prize. It was very admirable, indeed,
being of a dappled fawn colour, with an arabesque border of shaded
chocolate and amber; but in the eyes of its new owners its greatest
charm was its weight and thickness. Judy Quinlan declared, pinching a
fold fondly between a finger and thumb, that just the feel of it done
your heart good. Her own shawl was really only a ragged cotton
table-cover, and had, as she often remarked, "no more warmth in it than
an ould dish-clout." I should observe, to make the situation clear, that
the Tinkers' confraternity at this time consisted of Thady Quinlan and
his sister Judy, and their married sister Maggie Smith, with her
husband, and his brother, and his father, and three or four children.
Hence it is obvious that in any dispute which might arise between Judy
and Maggie, the latter was likely to have numbers preponderantly upon
her side. And this was what now actually took place, the place being the
driest end of the un-roofed cabin in Dunne's boreen, where the Tinkers
had for some time past made their camp.

The screed of thatch still adhering to the wall sheltered their fire of
purloined sods, and it burned steadily and strongly between the blasts
which made its red flame duck and sweel, and sent the white ash-flakes
fluttering. So there was light enough to show how covetous gleams from
the sisters' eyes flashed together on the shawl, of which each held a
corner. And no great wisdom was needed to forecast a storm. Mrs. Smith's
shawl was undeniably better than Judy's by many degrees but she had not
the magnanimity to consider this, even so far as to propose that Judy
should at any rate enjoy the reversion of her own. On the contrary, she
had rapidly planned its division between her two little ragged girls.
Judy, for her part, had set her heart desperately upon the acquisition,
and she deemed it her best policy to say in a tone studiously
matter-of-course:

"Faix, now, it's glad enough I'll be to get shut of this ould wad that's
on me. Every breath of win' goes thro' it as ready as if it was a
crevice in a wall, fit to freeze you into mortar."

A very vain device, for her sister promptly rejoined with a sarcastic
laugh and a tightened grip: "Musha moyah, how bad you are entirely.
Don't you wish you may?" which intimated plainly that the shawl was not
to be had uncontested.

At this crisis Judy had fully expected to be backed up by Thady; but he
naturally taking a more dispassionate vie