Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/144

132 Mrs. Byrne expressed her emotion and showed her tact by silently compressing her lips.

"I 've quit 'im, fer good an' all." She stroked a tear down her cheek with a thick forefinger. "I 'll niver go back. Niver!"

"Come away with yuh, Mary Cregan," Mrs. Byrne cried, in her breathy huskiness. "At your age! Faith, yuh 're as flighty as one o' them girls with the pink silk petticoats. He 's yer husban', ain't he? D' yuh think yuh were married over the broomstick? Come an' behave yerself like a decent woman. What 'd Father Dumphy say to this, think yuh?"

"He 's a man. I know what he 'd say. He 'd tell me to go back to Cregan. I 'll niver go back. Niver!"

"Yuh won't! What 'll yuh do, then? Where 'll yuh go to?"

"I 'll niver go back. Niver! He 's broke me best chiny—an' kicked the leg off the chair—an' overtoorned the table—an' ordered me out o' the little bit o' home I been all these years puttin' together. The teapot th' ol' man brought from Ireland—the very teapot—smashed to smithereens! An' the little white dishes with the gilt trimmin's I had to me weddin' day, Mrs. Byrne! There was the poor things all broke to bits!" She stopped to point at the sidewalk, as if the wreckage lay there before her. "All me little bit o' chiny. All of it. All of it, Mrs. Byrne. Ev'ry bit! Boorsted!"

Her tears choked her. She could not express the piercing irreparability of the injury. It would not