Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/244

Rh upon her. "An' that's a good plan, sure. It must be dridful lownly in a house wid ownly wan baby. Now there's one—Polly—would she do?"

"Why, she can run," I said. "I don't want one that can run."

"Oh, dear! " said Mrs. Hogan, with a sigh, "they all begin to run very airly. Now Polly isn't owld, at all. at all."

"I can see that," said I; "but I want one that you can put in a cradles-one that will have to stay there when you put it in."

It was plain that Mrs. Hogan's present stock did not contain exactly what I wanted, and directly Mrs. Duffy exclaimed: "There's Mary M'Cann—an' roight across the way!"

Mrs. Hogan said: "Yis, sure," and we all went over to a little house opposite.

"Now, thin," said Mrs. Duffy, entering the house and proudly drawing a small coverlet from a little box-bed in a corner, "what do you think of that?"

"Why, there are two of them," I exclaimed.

"To be sure," said Mrs. Duffy. "They're tweens. There's always two uv 'em when they're tweens. An' they're young enough."

"Yes," said I doubtfully; "but I couldn't take both. Do you think their mother would rent me one of them?"

The women shook their heads. "Ye see, sir," said Mrs. Hogan, "Mary M'Cann isn't here, bein' gone out to a wash, but she ownly has four or foive childther, an' she ain't much used to 'em yit, an' I kin spake fer her that she'd niver siparate a pair o' tweens. When she gits a dozen hersilf, and marries a widow jintleman wid a lot uv his own, she'll be glad enough