Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/75

Rh "And what is the last silly thing he has done?" said Dermot.

"It is," said she, "to go and give a hundred pounds of money to that mean little spiritless creature above, lame Michael's mother."

"Nonsense, Sive, don't you believe it."

"Oh, indeed, dad, there isn't a word of untruth in it. It was the bailiff himself that told me. I don't know where he got all the money. And, indeed, what good is it for him to have money if that's the way he means to let it go from him? You did well to break off the match that time, I should never have got over the regret of it if I had been married to a fool."

"Indeed, Sive," said Dermot, "it wasn't I that broke it off."

"And goodness, man, who else broke it off but you? Surely you are not going to say that it was Shiana that broke it off!"

"Really, my dear, I don't think anybody broke it. It wasn't there to break," said Dermot.

"It wasn't there to break!" said she. "It wasn't, and it won't be! You are a nice sort of man! It wasn't there to break! That is a nice way for you to talk. There are all your neighbours who have their children settled in life, and what have you done? It wasn't there to break! It was not, and it never will be!"

And then she began to cry.

Dermot got up, and walked down to the door and put his shoulder against the doorpost, and looked down the road, and then looked up the road.

—If I had been in Dermot's place, I would