m."

"God help childer an' their notions," said Lull to herself.

Next morning, when she was lighting the kitchen fire, a figure passed
the kitchen window. It was early for anybody to be about the place, so
Lull got up to see who it could be. It was Honeybird. She was running
quickly down the avenue, with something under her arm. She was back
again before breakfast.

"How's mother?" were her first words. Lull assured her that Mrs
Darragh was better again.

Honeybird gave a sigh of relief. "Och, but I got the quare scare," she
said. Lull pretended to know nothing.

"Well, I may as well tell ye it was me stole Father Ryan's wee bantam,"
said Honeybird. Lull expressed surprise.

"An' sez I to myself: 'Almighty God niver knows that I know right well
it's a sin'"--she paused for a moment--"but He knowed all the time.
'Clare to you, Lull dear, I made sure He'd 'a' kilt mother afore I got
the wee bantam tuk back."

"Did ye tell the priest that?" Lull asked.

"Troth, I tould him ivery word from the very start," Honeybird answered.

"An' what did he say to ye?" said Lull.

"He's the awful nice man," said Honeybird. "He tried to make out that
Almighty God wasn't as bad as all that. But I know better. Anyhow,
he's goin' to buy me a wee bantam cock and hen, all for my very own, to
keep for iver."

CHAPTER IX

THE DORCAS SOCIETY

The Dorcas Society was Jane's idea. She thought of it one Monday
evening as they all sat round the kitchen fire watching Lull make soup
for the poor. A bad harvest had been followed by an unusually wild
winter. Storms such as had not been known for fifty years swept over
the country, and now, after three months of storm, February had come
with a hard frost and biting wind that drove the cold home to the very
marrow of your bones. In winters past the poor had come from miles
round to Rowallan, where a boiler full of soup was never off the
kitchen fire. This winter, driven by want, some of those who
remembered the old days had come back once more, and Lull, out of her
scanty store, had filled once more the big boiler. On this Monday
evening, as she stirred the soup, she mourned for the good days past.

"Troth, Rowallan was the full an' plenty house when the ould master was
alive. Bad an' all as he was there was good in him. It was a sayin'
among the neighbours that if ye'd had three bellies on ye ye could 'a'
filled them all at Rowallan." Lull could have talked all