The Real Charlotte. 293 



the fact that " if a pairson was on his dying bed for the 

 want of a grain o' tay itself, he should thravel three miles 

 before he'd get it," but the true grievance remained locked 

 in Norry's bosom. Not to save her life would she have 

 admitted that what was really lacking in Gurthnamuckla was 

 society. The messengers from the shops, the pedlar-woman; 

 above all, the beggars ; of these she had been deprived at a 

 blow, and life had become a lean ill-nurtured thing without 

 the news with which they had daily provided her. Billy 

 Grainy and Nance the Fool were all that remained to her 

 of this choice company, the former having been retained in 

 his offices of milk-seller, messenger, and post-boy, and the 

 latter, like Abdiel, faithful among the faithless, was unde- 

 terred by the distance that had discouraged the others of 

 her craft, and limped once a week to Gurthnamuckla for the 

 sake of old times and a mug of dripping. 



By these inadequate channels a tardy rill of news made 

 its way to Miss Mullen's country seat, but it came poisoned 

 by the feeling that every one else in Lismoyle had known it 

 for at least a week, and Norry felt herself as much aggrieved 

 as if she had been charged " pence apiece " for stale eggs. 



It was therefore the more agreeable that, on this same 

 raw, grey Saturday morning, when Norry's temper had been 

 unusually tried by a search for the nest of an out-lying hen, 

 Mary Holloran, the Rosemount lodgewoman, should have 

 walked into the kitchen. 



" God save all here ! " she said, sinking on to a chair, 

 and wiping away with her apron the tears that the east wind 

 had brought to her eyes ; " I'm as tired as if I was afther 

 walking from Galway with a bag o' male ! " 



" Musha, then, cead failthe, Mary," repHed Norry with 

 unusual geniality ; " is it from Judy Lee's wake ye're 

 comin' ? " 



" I am, in throth ; Lord ha' mercy on her ! " Mary 

 Holloran raised her eyes to the ceiUng and crossed herself, 

 and Norry and Bid Sal followed her example. Norry was 

 sitting by the fire singeing the yellow carcase of a hen, and 

 the brand of burning paper in her hand heightened the 

 effect of the gesture in an almost startling way. " Well 

 now," resumed Mary Holloran, " she was as nice a woman 

 as ever threw a tub of clothes on the hill, and an honest 



