t she has for you, Miss! Shixteen pints! An' I'll
engage I'll knock thirteen ounces o' butther out of it! That's the
little bracket cow that yourself and Johnny Galvin wanted to sell, an'
I withstood ye!"

This was of the nature, jointly, of a counter-attack and of a truckle
to the system of milk-records, but Frederica heeded it not As a matter
of fact, she was still somewhat discomposed by the insinuations that
were more numerous than the pennies she was believed to possess.

"I hope, Mary," she said, repressively, "that if you should hear any
more talk of that kind about Dr. Mangan, you will do your best to
contradict it. He has been extremely kind to Master Larry, and it
annoys me very much that such things should be said."

Mrs. Twomey's supple mind was swift to realise that a change of
attitude was advisable.

"Why then, upon my truth and body, I'd blame no one that wanted Master
Larry! That little fella is in tune with all the world!" she declared;
"but those people do be always gibbing and gabbing! Give them a smell,
and they're that suspeecious they'll do the rest! Sure I said to that
owld man below, Mikey Twomey"--thus dispassionately was Mrs. Twomey
wont to speak of her husband--"I says to him, that your Honour was
satisfied to leave Master Larry back in Cluhir till he'd be well agin.
They were all sayin' the child wouldn't be said by ye to come back!
Didn't I have to put the heighth o' the house o' curses to it before
he'd believe me!"

"Intolerable nonsense!" said Frederica, hotly.

CHAPTER XIII

People have said, retrospectively, that the rise of the Mangan family
dated from the fall of Larry Coppinger into the Feorish River. This
may, or may not have been the case but it is certain that Mrs.
Mangan's way through the world took at about this time an upward
trend, and one of the most perceptible ascending jerks was the result
of Lady Isabel Talbot-Lowry's Sale of Work.

This function had been ordained with, for object, the provision of a
fund for the renovation of the parish church of Knock Ceoil, and was
obviously a matter without interest for persons of another
denomination. Lady Isabel, and Miss Coppinger, and others of their
friends and neighbours slaved at the provision of munitions for it, as
good women will slave at such enterprises, squandering energy on the
construction of those by-products of the rag-bag that wen specially
consecrated to charitable purposes by the ladies of their