u take a chair here by the fire, miss? I'm afraid
the night is a little bit chilly.--Miss Kathleen, I wish I could get up
and offer you a seat, but as it is--"

"Oh, nonsense!" said Kathleen. "What are young legs for if not to wait
on old legs? Oh, what a heavenly, delicious tea! What is that I see?
Honey! Oh, don't I just adore honey? Don't you, Aunt Katie?"

"That I do," said Miss O'Flynn; "and I eat it comb and all. It never yet
disagreed with me; but then I've got the digestion of an ostrich."

"Indeed, then, madam, I think you are rather silly to eat the comb,"
said Mrs. Church; "and you ought always to put butter on your bread when
you eat honey. My poor mother told me so, and I have always followed in
her steps. If you butter your bread and don't eat the comb, honey agrees
with you as well as anything else."

"Mrs. Church," said Kathleen, "you are perfectly sweet, and I can't tell
you how grateful we are; but we are in something of a hurry, so perhaps
you wouldn't mind telling the rest of that story about butter and honey
to Aunt Katie when you are in Ireland. Have you made the tea, Mrs.
Church? Shall I make it?"

"The tea is in that little brown caddy," said Mrs. Church, "and there's
a measuring spoon close to it. I allow--"

"Oh, I know," said Kathleen.

She began to ladle out spoonful after spoonful and put it into the
little brown teapot, which she then filled up with hot water. Mrs.
Church looked on with a mingled feeling of approval and disapproval. She
was being carried completely off her feet. She to give up her dear
little neat house in this reckless way; she to give up her most precious
tea to be absolutely wasted and practically lost--for Kathleen put in
quite three times too much tea into the little teapot; she to forgive
Susy's mother two months of that debt which she owed her. Oh, what did
it mean? She was going to be ruined in her old age!

"I'd just like to say, miss," she said, looking at Miss O'Flynn and
then at Kathleen--"I'd like to say that I am willing to help the young
ladies, and the old ladies too for that matter, but I want to know if it
is settled that I am to have the almshouse and six shillings a week. I
am a plain-spoken body and I'd like to know it; for if so it can be
done, I ought to give notice to the landlord of this little house, where
I have lived in peace and comfort for over twelve years. I'd like to
know, and as soon as possible."

"We have written about it, Mrs.