“Darby,” she replied, “there is no use for any length of conversation between you and me—­I’m here contrary to the wishes of my family—­but I am a mother, and cannot look upon their destitution without feeling that I should not allow my pride to stand between them and death:  we are starving, I mean—­they are; and I’m come to ask you for credit; if we are ever able to pay you, we will; if not, it’s only one good act done to a family that often did many to you when they thought you grateful.”

“I’m the worst in the world—­I’m the worst in the world,” replied Skinadre; “but it wasn’t till I knew that you’d be put out o’ your farm that I offered for it, and now you’ve taken away my carrecther, an’ spoken ill o’ me everywhere, an’ said that I bid for it over your heads; ay, indeed, an’ that it was your husband that set me up, by the way—­oh, yes—­an’ supposin’ it was, an’ I’m not denyin’ it, but is that any raisin that I’d not bid for a good farm, when I knew that yez ’ud be put out of it?”

“I am now spakin’ about the distress of our family,” said Mrs. Dalton, “you know that sickness has been among us, and is among us—­poor Tom is just able to be up, but that’s all.”

“Troth, an’ it ‘ud be well for you all, an’ for himself too, that he had been taken away afore he comes in a bad end.  What he will come too, if God hasn’t said it.  I hope he feels the affliction he brought on poor Ned Munay an’ his family by the hand he made of his unfortunate daughter.”

“He does feel it.  The death of her brother and their situation has touched his heart, an’ he’s only waitin’ for better health and better times to do her justice; but now what answer do you give me?”

“Why, this:  I’m harrished by what I’ve done for every one; an’—­an’—­the short and the long of it is, that I’ve naither male nor money to throw away.  I couldn’t afford it and I can’t.  I’m a rogue, Mrs. Dalton—­a miser, an extortioner, an ungrateful knave, and everything that is bad an’ worse than another; an’ for that raison, I say, I have naither male nor money to throw away.  That’s what I’d say if I was angry; but I’m not angry.  I do feel for you an’ them; still I can’t afford to do what you want, or I’d do it, for I like to do good for evil, bad as I am.  I’m strivin’ to make up my rent an’ to pay an unlucky bill that I have due to-morrow, and doesn’t know where the money’s to come from to meet both.”

“Mave Sullivan, achora, what can I—­”

Mrs. Dalton, from her position in the room, could not have noticed the presence of Mave Sullivan, but even had she been placed otherwise, it would have been somewhat difficult to get a glimpse of the young creature’s face.  Deeply did she participate in the sympathy which was felt for the mother of her mother, and so naturally delicate were her feelings, that she had drawn up the hood of her cloak, lest the other might have felt the humiliation to which Mave’s presence must have exposed her by the acknowledgment