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Rh doesn't care, so long as it can be talking, how much harm or good its talking does, very often. There's the whole world marrying him to Dermot's Sive. It would be better for him to drown himself. You wouldn't choose the Maid of the Liss for him. I have nothing to say, good, bad, or indifferent, about Nora of the Causeway, but I do say that the whole world is a great fool and I would rather set it down a fool than take its advice."

"And see," said his mother, "there is the whole world marrying him to Short Mary, and how well you find no fault with it."

"A pretty comparison, indeed, Short Mary and the rest of them! Where is the like of Short Mary to be found? Not in the seven parishes. A fine, handsome, noble woman. A wise, sensible, wellbrought-up woman, to whom poor and rich alike are grateful. A pious, exemplary woman, whose presence is a benefit to the congregation in which she hears Mass. Good and bad have a reverence for her. If there were two women quarrelling and they saw her coming, they would stop till she had passed them, just as if it were the priest that was going by."

"I wonder," said his mother, "whether, if Sive were quarrelling on the road, she would stop if she saw Mary coming?"

"Why then, I tell you, on my solemn word, mother, that I saw her do it with my own eyes, and I never was more surprised at anything! I was going east to the Burkes' house with a message. When I was getting near Dermot's house I heard Sive scolding at the top of her voice, giving furious abuse to some neighbour. Who should come westward round the corner house but Short Mary. No sooner did Sive