do I care who hears me? I'm goin' off from here
fer good an' all. 'Twill know me no more. 'Twill not. I'm done with it
all. I'm done with it." She held out her purse. "I've got me bit o'
money. I'll hire me a little room up-town. I'm done with _him_ an'
Father Dumphy an' the whole dang lot o' yuz. Slavin' an' savin' fer
nothin' at all. I'll worrk fer mesilf now, an' none other. Neither
Cregan ner the choorch ner no one ilse 'll get a penny's good o' me no
more. I got no one in the wide worrld but mesilf to look to, an' I'll go
it alone."

Mrs. Byrne was a little woman of a somewhat sinister aspect, her dull
eyes very deep in their wrinkles, her nose pushed aside out of the
perpendicular, her long lips stretched tightly over protruding teeth.
She was as curious as an old monkey; but it was not only her curiosity
that made her the busiest gossip and the most charitable "good soul" in
the street; she had her share of human kindness, and if she was as
crafty as a hypocrite, it was because she enjoyed handling men and
women, like a politician.

Seeing that Mrs. Cregan was beyond the reach of shame or the appeal of
the priest, she said: "Well, I don't blame yuh, woman. Cregan's a
fool--like all the rest o' the men. An' yerself such a good manager.
Well, well! Yer rooms was that purty 't 'ud make yuh wistful. Where will
yuh be goin'?"

"I dunno."

"Have yuh had yer breakfast?"

Mrs. Cregan shook her head.

"Come back, then, an' have a bite with me."

"Niver! I'll niver go back."

Mrs. Byrne hitched up her shawl. "Come along then to the da-ary
restr'unt. There's no one home to miss me. Ill take a bit o' holiday,
this mornin', meself. I've been wantin' to taste one o' those batter
cakes they make in the restr'unt windahs, this long enough."

"Yuh've ate yer breakfast."

"I have not" Mrs. Byrne replied. "I was off to the grocer to buy some
sugar when yuh stopped me."

It was a lie. She had, in fact; started out, secretly, on a guilty
errand which she should not acknowledge.

"It's a lonely meal I'd 've been havin'," she said, "with Byrne down at
the boiler house an' the boy off on his run."

Mrs. Cregan did not reply, and they came to Sixth Avenue without more
words. They paused before a dairy restaurant that advertised its
"Surpassing Coffee" in white-enamel letters on its shop-front windows.
Mrs. Cregan's hunger drew her in, but slowly; and Mrs. Byrne followed,
coughing to conceal her embarrassment.

[Illus