delicate was constantly indulged and nearly always
eating, and giving herself generally the airs of the daughter of the
house.

Aunt Bridget's step-daughter, ten years older, was a gaunt, ungainly
girl with red hair and irregular features. Her name was Nessy, and,
having an instinctive sense of her dependent position, she was very
humble and subservient and, as Tommy the Mate used to say, "as smooth as
an old threepenny bit" to the ruling powers, which always meant my Aunt,
but spiteful, insolent, and acrid to anybody who was outside my Aunt's
favour, which usually meant me.

Between my cousin and myself there were constant feuds, in which Nessy
MacLeod never failed to take the side of Betsy Beauty, while my poor
mother became a target for the shafts of Aunt Bridget, who said I was a
wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, and no wonder, seeing how
disgracefully I was indulged, and how shockingly I was being brought up.

These skirmishes went on for a considerable time without consequences,
but they came at last to a foolish climax which led to serious results.

Even my mother's life had its gleams of sunshine, and flowers were a
constant joy to her. Old Tommy, the gardener, was aware of this, and
every morning sent up a bunch of them, freshly cut and wet with the dew.
But one day in the spring he could not do so, being out in the dubs of
the Curragh, cutting peat for the fires. Therefore I undertook to supply
the deficiency, having already, with the large solemnity of six, begun
to consider it my duty to take charge of my mother.

"Never mind, mammy, I'll setch some slowers sor you," I said (every _f_
being an _s_ in those days), and armed with a pair of scissors I skipped
down to the garden.

I had chosen a bed of annuals because they were bright and fragrant, and
was beginning to cut some "gilvers" when Nessy MacLeod, who had been
watching from a window, came bouncing down me.

"Mary O'Neill, how dare you?" cried Nessy. "You wilful, wicked,
underhand little vixen, what will your Aunt Bridget say? Don't you know
this is Betsy Beauty's bed, and nobody else is to touch it?"

I began to excuse myself on the ground of my mother and Tommy the Mate,
but Nessy would hear no such explanation.

"Your mamma has nothing to do with it. You know quite well that your
Aunt Bridget manages everything in this house, and nothing can be done
without her."

Small as I was that was too much for me. Somewhere in my little heart