for that same.
Sure meself was a great while afore ever I thought of axin' Biddy, and
for anythin' I can tell I might ha' done better if I'd held me tongue a
bit longer and then said nothin', as the sayin' is. I was ould enough to
know me own mind any way. But, musha, for that matter, Rose there 'ill
prisintly be settin' up to think she's ould enough to know hers, and
it's twinty chances if she has as much wit as you."

"And why would she," said Theresa, "or anybody be wishin' it to her? Oh,
let that alone. There's a dale of diff'rint sorts of wit, and no raison
why one of them shouldn't be as good as another. Look at her
grandmother, me sister Bessy, it's plinty of paice and comfort she had
wid her marryin'."

This was quite true, as although she had been rather early widowed, and
her only daughter had married an emigrant, her son and his wife had
taken such care of her, and made so much of her, that the neighbours had
never thought of calling her the widdy, a title reserved for a woman
left struggling alone; and she had remained Mrs. Kilfoyle to the end of
her days.

"And look at the poor crathur there, what she's come to," said Ody,
instancing the tragical figure of the widow Morrough.

"Ah, the saints may pity her," said Theresa. "But the likes of such bad
luck happins few people married or single, thank God."

"It's a quare unnathural young villin her son must be," said Mrs. Brian,
"to skyte off and lave her that-a-way. Sorra the bit he can be good
for."

"'Deed, now, Norah woman, that's the very notion is disthressin' me,"
said Theresa, "for I dunno but it's after usin' him ill, I am. You see
the way of it was the poor sowl--poor Mrs. Morrough--had the great dread
of the say upon her, be raison of her husband and her father gettin'
dhrowned at the fishin', so she'd always the fear in her mind of the
same thing happ'nin' her couple of boys. Howane'er, the eldest of them
went off to California a good few years back, and was doin' pretty
middlin' well out there the last she heard of him, but that's a long
while ago now; about gettin' married he was. But Felix, the lad she had
at home wid her until the other day, often enough he was bound to be on
the wather, after the fish and the sayweed, if he was to get his livin'
at all. And disthracted she was seem' him goin' out in their ould boat,
that's laiks enough in her to sink the biggest ship ever set sail, and
herself wid scarce the width to hould a sizable flou