COMMUTER'S WIFE 275 



backs coming in fuller, which can't be changed, 

 it being a remnant?' The same being quite the 

 truth, Mrs. Evan. 



"Then she took down-hearted, and news kept 

 comin' to her that Patrick had never done a day's 

 work since Hallowe'en and was drinking most 

 shocking. ' I never thought he was that fond o' 

 me,' she'd keep saying, and rocking to and fro, 

 'and it's I that was a fool to throw away me luck, 

 and a fine house, too.' 



"'I kenned it was yersel' was throwed, hoose 

 and a',' said Timothy Saunders, unfortunate-like, 

 one night. So for a while she kept her trouble 

 to herself, out of stiff pride. 



"Last night I was sitting down to my needle, 

 when some one knocked, and I opened the door to 

 a respectable looking body dressed out quite decent 

 in black. Before I learned her business she was 

 past me, to where Delia sat at the machine, and 

 a-kneeling before her, crying and ' taking on not 

 fit or proper for a woman of her years. 



" Mrs. Evan, if it was not old Mrs. Doolan beg- 

 ging Delia to marry her son to save him from death 

 by drink and disappointment, then Corkle isn't dead 

 and I his widow ! 



" Mrs. Evan, Delia gave her promise all too ready- 



