the world fer a book.
He's livin' in Chicago, and he writes home now and then. He's makin'
lots of money, too, the scamp, but he's like his father fer spendin'.
Sometimes he borrows from me, just to tide him over, but he says that
he will make enough money some day to turn the old tavern into a
mansion. Then I'll be a foine lady, with nothin' to do but sit about
and knit, with a lace cap on me head, and servants to do all the work.
Though I'm afraid me old bones would never submit to that."

"Do ye believe the nonsense he writes, Mistress McVeigh?" questioned
Mr. Conors.

"Aye, an' I do that, sir. It's me, his old mother, that knows the grit
o' him, and the brains he has."

Tears were shining in Nancy's eyes, and she dried them on her apron,
under cover of a sharp order which she called to a maid in the
dining-room.

"Ye have a rare good heart in ye, Nancy McVeigh," Mr. O'Hagan commented.

"Heart, ye call it, sor. It's a mother's heart, and nothin' else," she
answered, quickly, and then continued, somewhat bitterly, "It's nigh
broke with anger and trouble this day. It's not that the work is hard,
nor the trade fallin' away, for it has kept me and mine these many
years, and it'll never fail while I have me health. But my interest
falls due this month."

"It's a power o' interest ye hev paid that old miser, John Keene, since
McVeigh took over the tavern," Mr. Conors observed.

"It is that, Mr. Conors, and he treats me none the better fer it. A
week come Tuesday he stalks into the bar here, and, before my
customers, he threatens to put me into the road if I fail to have the
amount fer him on the due date. I jest talked back to him with no fear
in me eye, and he cooled off wonderfully. I have since got the money
together, and a hundred dollars to pay on the principal, and to-morrow
I'm goin' to give it to him with me compliments."

"Ye need not be afraid o' his puttin' ye out, Mistress McVeigh,
begorra. He knows right well the place wouldn't be fit to stable
horses in if ye were to leave it, and then who'd pay him his dirty
interest?" sagely remarked Mr. Conors.

"Well, if that ain't James Bennet comin' along the road, and tipsy,
too," broke in Mr. O'Hagan, catching sight of a new arrival from
townwards.

"The likes o' him!" sniffed Nancy, contemptuously. "Not a drop will I
serve him, the good-fer-nothin'! There's his poor wife with a
two-weeks-old baby, and two other childer scarce able to walk, a