Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/145

133 have been so bad if he had beaten her; a hurt will heal. But the innocent, wee cups—and the fat old brown teapot—and the sweet little chair with its pretty legs, carved and turned so daintily! She had washed them and wiped them, and dusted and polished them, and been so careful of them and felt so proud of them, for twenty years past. And, now, there they were lying, all in bits—past mending—gone forever. And they so pretty and so harmless.

The crash as they fell on the floor had sounded in her ears like the scream of a child murdered.

She started forward again, determinedly. "I 'll niver go back to 'm. He can have his house to himsilf.… What do I care for Father Dumphy? He wants nothin' but the dime I leaves at the choorch doore, an' the dime I drops on the plate! Whin me poorse 's impty, he 'll not bother his head about me!"

"Shame on yuh!" Mrs. Byrne wheezed, with her eye on the house she was passing. "Yuh talk no better than a Prod'stunt."

"An' if I was a Prod'stint," she cried, "I 'd not have to pay money iv'ry time I wanted to hear mass. I 'd not be out on the street here, not knowin' where I 'm goin' to, ner how I 'm to live. It 's thim that knows how to take care o' their own—givin' the women worrk, an' takin' the childer off to the farrms, an' all the like o' that. You Dogans"

Mrs. Byrne glanced about her fearfully. "Stop yer talk, now. Stop yer talk. Stop it before someone hears yuh makin' a big fool o' yerself."