shame? (She assaults her
chair by sitting down.)

CHRISTY (staring). Uncle Peter's daughter!

MRS. DUDGEON. Why else should she be here? D'ye think I've not had
enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone
you and your good-for-nothing brother, without having your uncle's
bastards--

CHRISTY (interrupting her with an apprehensive glance at the door by
which Essie went out). Sh! She may hear you.

MRS. DUDGEON (raising her voice). Let her hear me. People who fear God
don't fear to give the devil's work its right name. (Christy,
soullessly indifferent to the strife of Good and Evil, stares at the
fire, warming himself.) Well, how long are you going to stare there
like a stuck pig? What news have you for me?

CHRISTY (taking off his hat and shawl and going to the rack to hang
them up). The minister is to break the news to you. He'll be here
presently.

MRS. DUDGEON. Break what news?

CHRISTY (standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up,
though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg, and speaking with
callous placidity, considering the nature of the announcement).
Father's dead too.

MRS. DUDGEON (stupent). Your father!

CHRISTY (sulkily, coming back to the fire and warming himself again,
attending much more to the fire than to his mother). Well, it's not my
fault. When we got to Nevinstown we found him ill in bed. He didn't
know us at first. The minister sat up with him and sent me away. He
died in the night.

MRS. DUDGEON (bursting into dry angry tears). Well, I do think this is
hard on me--very hard on me. His brother, that was a disgrace to us all
his life, gets hanged on the public gallows as a rebel; and your
father, instead of staying at home where his duty was, with his own
family, goes after him and dies, leaving everything on my shoulders.
After sending this girl to me to take care of, too! (She plucks her
shawl vexedly over her ears.) It's sinful, so it is; downright sinful.

CHRISTY (with a slow, bovine cheerfulness, after a pause). I think it's
going to be a fine morning, after all.

MRS. DUDGEON (railing at him). A fine morning! And your father newly
dead! Where's your feelings, child?

CHRISTY (obstinately). Well, I didn't mean any harm. I suppose a man
may make a remark about the weather even if his father's dead.

MRS. DUDGEON (bitterly). A nice comfort my children are to me! One son
a fool, and the other a lost sinner that's left his home to liv