“Look at that now what she has for you, Miss!  Shixteen pints!  An’ I’ll engage I’ll knock thirteen ounces o’ butther out of it!  That’s the little bracket cow that yourself and Johnny Galvin wanted to sell, an’ I withstood ye!”

This was of the nature, jointly, of a counter-attack and of a truckle to the system of milk-records, but Frederica heeded it not As a matter of fact, she was still somewhat discomposed by the insinuations that were more numerous than the pennies she was believed to possess.

“I hope, Mary,” she said, repressively, “that if you should hear any more talk of that kind about Dr. Mangan, you will do your best to contradict it.  He has been extremely kind to Master Larry, and it annoys me very much that such things should be said.”

Mrs. Twomey’s supple mind was swift to realise that a change of attitude was advisable.

“Why then, upon my truth and body, I’d blame no one that wanted Master Larry!  That little fella is in tune with all the world!” she declared; “but those people do be always gibbing and gabbing!  Give them a smell, and they’re that suspeecious they’ll do the rest!  Sure I said to that owld man below, Mikey Twomey”—­thus dispassionately was Mrs. Twomey wont to speak of her husband—­“I says to him, that your Honour was satisfied to leave Master Larry back in Cluhir till he’d be well agin.  They were all sayin’ the child wouldn’t be said by ye to come back!  Didn’t I have to put the heighth o’ the house o’ curses to it before he’d believe me!”

“Intolerable nonsense!” said Frederica, hotly.

CHAPTER XIII

People have said, retrospectively, that the rise of the Mangan family dated from the fall of Larry Coppinger into the Feorish River.  This may, or may not have been the case but it is certain that Mrs. Mangan’s way through the world took at about this time an upward trend, and one of the most perceptible ascending jerks was the result of Lady Isabel Talbot-Lowry’s Sale of Work.

This function had been ordained with, for object, the provision of a fund for the renovation of the parish church of Knock Ceoil, and was obviously a matter without interest for persons of another denomination.  Lady Isabel, and Miss Coppinger, and others of their friends and neighbours slaved at the provision of munitions for it, as good women will slave at such enterprises, squandering energy on the construction of those by-products of the rag-bag that wen specially consecrated to charitable purposes by the ladies of their period.

“No one will want to buy this rubbish,” said Miss Coppinger, who never tried to deceive even herself, “but people will have to spend their money on something, and we’re not going to raffle bottles of brandy—­as they did at that R.C.  Bazaar in Riverstown!”

Frederica could be just, but when a question of religion intervened, she found it hard to be generous.