Mrs. Kirby put her plump white hand on Frederica’s narrow knee.  “I shouldn’t distress myself if I were you, my dear,” she said in a low voice.  “Quite possibly it’s all a mistake—­” She turned to Mr. Cotton, who was relapsing into trance; his eyes had followed the movement of her hand, and were being held, hypnotically, by the sparkle of the diamonds in her rings.  “At all events,” went on Mrs. Kirby, “a general election now is very unlikely, and our valued member—­upon my word, I don’t even remember his name!—­isn’t likely to resign in Larry’s favour, so we needn’t discuss it now!  I am sure, Mr. Cotton, that you will agree with me, that the less said about it the better; most probably the whole thing will die out and come to nothing!” She glanced at Mrs. St. George, and perceiving that the news had shattered her in only less degree than Frederica, she continued to address Mr. Cotton, “Such weather!  Isn’t it?  How does your garden like all this rain, Mr. Cotton?  Our strawberries won’t ripen, and as for the poor hay—!  You really ought to have prayers for fine weather for us next Sunday!”

Mr. Cotton recalled his eyes from the diamonds with an effort.  “I will, if you like, Mrs. Kirby!” he said, looking at her, like an old horse, down his long, deplorable nose, “but I fear they will be not of much use, as the glawss is remorkably low!”

Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated as a permissible subject for mirth, and Mrs. Kirby availed herself of the convention; even Frederica and Mrs. St. George, stricken though they were, smiled wanly.

CHAPTER XXI

At about this time, that imposing spectacle, once described by Mrs. Twomey as “The Big Doctor and little Danny Aherne walking the streets of Cluhir like two paycocks,” was vouchsafed to the town rather more frequently than was usually the case.  Dr. Aherne had sent a patient, who was no less a person than the priest of the parish of Pribawn, to the private ward of the Infirmary in Cluhir, where he would, among other advantages, receive daily visits from Dr. Mangan.  Father Sweeny was suffering from a broken leg, and other damages; a midnight drive to a dying parishioner had ended, disastrously, in an unguarded road-side ditch, and Dr. Aherne had thought it best to consign a patient of such importance to the care of hands less occupied, as well as of higher renown, than his own.

Thus it was that the Big Doctor and his kinsman saw more of each other than is often possible for men whose work is as widespread and incessant as is that of Irish Dispensary Doctors.  On this windy June morning they had met in the dreary yard of the Workhouse, to which the Infirmary was attached, and together they paced the long, whitewashed, slate-paven passages that led to the Infirmary, pausing at intervals to talk of matters quite unconnected with their patients, but, if the frequency of the pauses, filled by the sibilant whispers of the little doctor, and the deep growls of the big one, was any criterion, none the less absorbing.