An old widower maybe, or maybe a fellow with one leg. Pat's gettin'
good wages, an' the two of them were talkin' o' takin' that little
thatched cabin just out of the town--"

"A cabin!" said Juliana, and began to turn up her eyes, and to make a
strange clucking noise in her throat.

"For goodness' sake, Ju, don't be goin' off in highsterics," cried
Nanny quickly. "Sure what matter if 'tis a cabin itself! I'll engage
she'll keep it as clean as a new pin--and she's a great hand at her
needle, so she is. Sure she'll be able to do dressmakin' for the
quality."

"An' of course," said Mrs. McNally, casting a deprecating glance round
at the irate faces, "we mustn't forget she doesn't rightly belong to
the family. Tis no disgrace to us at all, an' really an' truly, girls,
I'm almost glad to think she's comfortably settled."

"To be sure," said Bridget, "she's no relation at all to any of us. A
little girl that me a'nt took in out of charity. Why wouldn't she
marry the baker--"

"My blessin' to her!" said Mary sourly.

Juliana left off clucking, and smiled sarcastically. "She isn't
breakin' her heart after you, Mr. Brian, at any rate," she remarked.
"She wasn't long in getting over her disappointment."

"I must say I didn't think she'd make so little of herself," he
returned, drawing himself up.

"How d'ye like that, Nanny?" said Juliana spitefully. "I declare Mr.
Brian's quite upset."

"Ah, the poor fellow, is he?" said Anna Maria, whose good-humour was
imperturbable. "I declare I'll have to get married to him now if it's
only to comfort him."

And thereupon she burst into a hearty laugh, in which Brian Brennan
joined.

IN ST. PATRICK'S WARD

It was intensely, suffocatingly hot, though the windows on either side
of the long room were wide open; the patients lay languidly watching
the flies on the ceiling, the sunshine streaming over the ochre-tinted
wall, the flickering light of the little lamp which burned night and
day beneath the large coloured statue of St. Patrick in the centre of
the ward. It was too hot even to talk. Granny M'Gee--who, though not
exactly ill, was old and delicate enough to be permitted to remain
permanently in the Union Infirmary instead of being relegated to the
workhouse proper--dozed in her wicker chair with her empty pipe
between her wrinkled fingers. Once, as she loved to relate, she had
burnt her lovely fringe with that same pipe--"bad luck to it!" but she
invariably haste