Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/44

36 manuscript. 'I know what you men think, that Hanna Drummond—meaning women in general—should have been content with her lot. That had she gone away in earnest it would have been wrong. Yet, tremble for your thrones. More often than you imagine, we women go in dreams to meet the lovers whose faces you once had, and we wander with them in the lands we once dreamt home was like,—until we are called back to our duties by some dull familiar voice. No, I won't listen to a word, because I am a woman and intend to have the last one, and that is Good-night.'

'And if you could not have the last one you would soon make us understand by some other means, like the widow O'Dwyer,' said a voice from a corner of the room.

'Who was she, Mr. Macarthy? Do tell us about her,' cried Deborah Hayden, forgetting her resolution not to stop a moment longer, and sinking into a chair.

'Well, it was told me by an old man named M$c$Loughlin in Limerick years ago, and I will tell it as he told it to me sitting in his big chair pulling at his pipe.'