THE SILVER FOX 45 



the back hall, Miss Slaney, and would be 

 thankful to speak to you." 



Thus Tierney, the pantry boy; Slaney 

 was irritably aware that two buttons were 

 missing from his jacket. It would need 

 poetry of the highest moral tendency to 

 preserve the serenity of an Irish house- 

 keeper. 



Slaney went out into the draughty hall 

 wondering dismally if it would be the 

 cough-bottle or the burn-plaster that would 

 be required, and found the widow Quin 

 awaiting her in tears. Slaney had the turn 

 for doctoring that is above all things ador- 

 able to the Irish poor, whose taste for the 

 contraband finds in a female quack a grati- 

 fication almost comparable to "potheen- 

 making." She understood them and their 

 ailments by nature and by practice, and, since 

 her childhood, had been accustomed to go to 

 their deathbeds, and their funerals. Such 

 scenes moved her strongly, but she had 

 learned to prize the artistic value of strong 

 emotion. 



