herto
chiefly consisted of quarrels. In fact, only the day before his father's
death, they had fallen out abusively about the broiling of some bacon,
and this seemed to make her destination all the more inevitable.
Therefore Moggy likewise set about her few dismal preparations,
oppressed by a stunned sense that the black hour she had been dreading
most of her life was now just going to strike.

On the morning of the day Ody was to flit she held a sort of carouse at
her solitary breakfast over the remnant of a pound of tea which she had
saved after the wake. Tea was ten prices fifty years ago, and a very
rare luxury at the Three Mile Farm. As she poured it strong and black
out of the badly broken teapot, the whole one being packed up, she
thought that was the last time she'd ever have the chance again in this
world to be wetting herself a cup of tea, and she thickened it
recklessly with lumps of damp brown sugar, and swung it round in her
cracked saucer to cool, and tried hard to enjoy it. She was still
lingering over it when Ody came into the kitchen, which caused her, poor
soul, instinctively to thrust away the betraying teapot out of sight on
the black hob.

"What way was you intindin' to go, then, aunt?" said Ody.

"To Moynalone?" she said, turning to face her future with a deep sinking
of heart. "Sure, I suppose it's trampin' over I'll be."

"And I won'er how long you think to be doin' it," said Ody--"a matter of
ten mile?"

"Where's the hurry at all, supposin'?" said his aunt, desperately.

"Blathers!" said Ody, "there's room in the cart waitin' ready. You'd be
better bundlin' yourself into it than to be sittin' here all the mornin'
delayin' us."

"'Deed, then, beggars drive as chape as they walk," she said, "and I
might as well be gettin' the lift as far as you can take me."

The old white-faced pony preferred to pace slowly on the long bog-road,
and, as Ody always respected his whims, the journey barely ended with
the March daylight. The old, sad-visaged woman sat all the while under
her muffling shawl in silent apathy undisturbed, and as during the
latter stages of the drive a blinking drowsiness co-operated with her
want of interest in the scenes through which she jogged, she naturally
looked around her in bewilderment when roused by the jerk of the
stopping cart. She expected to find herself in the streets of Moynalone,
drawn up, probably, at the door of the big Union workhouse. But, instead
of its l