“Your son’s joking, ma’am. I was only asking to see Miss Lynch, on business.”
“Step upstairs, mother, into the big parlour, and don’t let’s be standing talking here where all the world can hear us.”
“And wilcome, for me, I’m shure”—said the widow, stroking down the front of her dress with the palms of her hands, as she walked upstairs—“and wilcome too for me I’m very shure. I’ve said or done nothing as I wish to consail, Mr Daly. Will you be plazed to take a chair?” and the widow sat down herself on a chair in the middle of the room, with her hands folded over each other in her lap, as if she was preparing to answer questions from that time to a very late hour in the evening.
“And now, Mr Daly—av’ you’ve anything to say to a poor widdy like me, I’m ready.”
“My chief object in calling, Mrs Kelly, was to see Miss Lynch. Would you oblige me by letting Miss Lynch know that I’m waiting to see her on business.”
“Maybe it’s a message from her brother, Mr Daly?” said Mrs Kelly.
“You had better go in to Miss Lynch, mother,” said Martin, “and ask her av’ it’s pleasing to her to see Mr Daly. She can see him, in course, av’ she likes.”
“I don’t see what good ’ll come of her seeing him,” rejoined the widow. “With great respect to you, Mr Daly, and not maning to say a word agin you, I don’t see how Anty Lynch ’ll be the betther for seeing ere an attorney in the counthry.”
“I don’t want to frighten you, ma’am,” said Daly; “but I can assure you, you will put yourself in a very awkward position if you refuse to allow me to see Miss Lynch.”
“Ah, mother!” said Martin, “don’t have a word to say in the matther at all, one way or the other. Just tell Anty Mr Daly wishes to see her—let her come or not, just as she chooses. What’s she afeard of, that she shouldn’t hear what anyone has to say to her?”