Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/43

 to have given in the way I did. Well, I was sitting by the fire and himself was out about the place, and the two girleens was playing themselves, when all of a sudden Susy ran in on me"

"It was me and not Susy!" said Norah Kate.

"What matter the which of you it was?" said Mrs. Cassidy. "My own belief is it was the two of ye together—and says she: 'The postman's coming up the lane.' 'He is not!' I said. 'He couldn't be, for the lane leads nowhere but to this house and who'd be writing a letter to one of us?'

"That was what I said; but I knew well that the postman was coming—and I knew that it was a letter from Sonny he had for me. I knew it by the way my heart was beating so as I could hear the noise of it with my ears—till all of a sudden it stopped entirely and I had to take hold of the table with my two hands, so as I wouldn't fall. That's what made me know there was a letter from Sonny; but I wasn't fit to go to the door to get it—not if I'd been given the crown of the Queen of Spain I couldn't have moved. Norah Kate got the letter."

"Me, and Susy along with me," said Norah Kate.

She is a fair-minded child. She objected to being deprived of her glory as the first bearer of the news; but she was jealous for her sister's honour too. Norah Kate and Susy together had taken the letter from the postman.

"I seen by the stamp on it," said Mrs. Cassidy,