68 The Real Charlotte. 



the little three-legged pot off its heap of hot embers, and 

 then took the cork out of the black bottle with nimble, 

 dirty fingers. 



*' What in the name of goodness is that ye have there ? " 

 demanded Charlotte hastily. 



Mrs. Roche looked somewhat confused, and murmured 

 something about " a weeshy suppeen o' shperits to wet the 

 grool." 



Charlotte snatched the bottle from her, and smelt it. 



" Faugh ! " she said, with a guttural at the end of the 

 word that no Saxon gullet could hope to produce ; " it's 

 potheen ! that's what it is, and mighty bad potheen too. 

 D'ye want to poison the woman ? " 



A loud chorus of repudiation arose from the sick-nurse 

 and her friends. 



" As for you, Peggy Roche, you're not fit to tend a pig, 

 let alone a Christian. You'd murder this poor woman with 

 your filthy fresh potheen, and when your own son was dying, 

 you begrudged him the drop of spirits that'd have kept the 

 life in him." 



Peggy flung up her arms with a protesting howl 



" May God forgive ye that word, Miss Charlotte ! If 

 'twas the blood of me arrm, I didn't begridge it to him ; the 

 Lord have mercy on him — " 



" Amen ! amen ! You would not, asthore," groaned the 

 other women. 



" — but doesn't the world know its mortial sin for a poor 

 craythur to go into th' other world with the smell of dhrink 

 on his breath ! " 



'' It's mortal sin to be a fool," replied Miss Mullen, whose 

 medical skill had often been baffled by such winds of 

 doctrine ; " here, give me the gruel. I'll go give it to the 

 woman before you have her murdered." She deftly emptied 

 the pot of gruel into a bowl, and, taking the spoon out of 

 the old woman's hand, she started on her errand of mercy. 



The stairs were just outside the door, and making their 

 dark and perilous ascent in safety, she stood still in a low 

 passage into which two or three other doors opened. She 

 knocked at the first of these, and, receiving no answer, 

 turned the handle quietly and looked in. There was no 

 furniture in it except a broken wooden bedstead ; innumer- 



