died man, shrew-ridden through sheer supineness and
"polthroonery." But what Lisconnel often said that it "thought badder
of" was the stepmotherly treatment which seemed to be the lot of the
little girl Katty. Of course the situation was one which, under the
circumstances, would have made people believe in such a state of things
upon the slenderest evidence. Still, even to unprejudiced eyes, it was
clear that Katty's rags were raggeder than those of her small
step-brothers, and that she crept about with the mien of a creature
which has conceived reasonable doubts respecting the reception it is
likely to meet in society. When the autumn weather began to grow wintry,
little Katty Patman, "perishin' about out there in the freezin' win',"
became a spectacle which was viewed with indignant sympathy from dark
doorways whence she received many an invitation to step in and be
warmin' herself. Her hostesses opined that she was fairly starved just
for a taste of the fire, and didn't believe she was ever let next or
nigh it in her own place. Often, too, the consideration that she had no
more flesh on her bones than a March chucken led to the bestowal of a
steaming potato or a piece of griddle-bread; but the result of this was
sometimes unsatisfactory to the giver, Katty being apt to dart away with
her refreshments, which she might presently be seen sharing among Bobby
and Stevie, for whom she entertained a strong and apparently
unreciprocated regard.

"I wouldn't go for to be sayin' anythin' to set her agin them," Mrs.
Brian Kilfoyle remarked on some such occasion. "But, goodness forgive
me! I've no likin' for them two little brats. I'd misthrust them."

"Ah, sure they've no sinse," said Biddy Ryan. "Where'd they git it? And
the biggest of them, I'd suppose, under four year ould."

"Sinse!" said Mrs. Quigley. "Bedad, then, if sinse was all that ailed
them, the pair of them is as 'cute as a couple of young foxes. I mind
on'y a day or so after they'd been in it, I met the laste one on the
road, and I comin' home wid be chance a sugarstick in me basket. So,
just to be makin' friends like, I gave it a bit for itself, and a bit
for the other that I seen comin' along. Well, now, ma'am, if it had took
and ate up the both of the bits, I'd ha' thought ne'er a pin's point of
harm--'twould ha' been nathural enough to the size of it. But I give you
me word, when it seen it couldn't get the two of them swallied down
afore its brother come by