ght stay at home for good and all; and dhrownded he'll be, and
meself'ill go deminted.' And sure I thought it was maybe no thing to be
doin', and so I said to her. But it seemed the heart of her was to be
broke altogether if anythin' 'ud hinder him gettin' out of it. And then
I was mindin' the father and grandfather of him, the way they went, and
me brother, poor Thady, and I couldn't tell but I might ha' raison to
think bad of biddin' him stay; and if he did, sure perhaps he couldn't
be keepin' her at all, and she so helpless; it's better able he might be
to help her out in the States. And sorry I'd ha' been to disappoint the
crathur of the first wish she'd took a thought of sittin' in the dark of
her misfortin. So the ind of it was I settled I'd stop wid her for that
day, and thry could we let on there was nothin' amiss when Felix come
in, that was out somewhere since early in the mornin' before the storm
began.

"But 'deed now it was the quare conthrivin' we had after he'd come home.
And where'd he been but off down to Drumroe gettin' her an iligant big
taypot for a keepsake? So the sorra a stim of it, in coorse, could she
see; and I done me best biddin' her look at the grand gilt handle, and
the wrathe of pink roses on it, and she'd say the same thing after me;
but sure its noways very aisy to fall into an admiration of a taypot
you've never set eyes on; and I misdoubt the poor lad thought she wasn't
so much plased with it as he expected. And then he'd be walkin' in and
out, and axin' for this and that he was to put in his bundle; and she
could on'y be tellin' him where to look for them, instid of readyin'
them up for him herself. And the pair of socks she'd promised him she
couldn't get to finish--rael fretted she was wid it all. Howsome'er one
way or the other we made a shift, till poor Felix went off in the grey
of the mornin' wid ne'er a notion of anythin'. Sez he to her: 'You'll be
seem' me steppin' in agin one of these days;' and sez she: 'Ay will
I--as sure as I'll see the sun shinin';' so he consaited she was well
enough contint--but the two of them was thinkin' diff'rint things.

"Ne'er a word of it we said to anybody before Felix was gone, or else
somebody 'ud ha' been safe to ha' tould him, for there's plinty of
people couldn't be goin' about widout tellin' everythin' they hear any
more than a wasp could fly widout buzzin' its wings. And then we got the
docther to her, but he couldn't do e'er a hand's tur