The stranger did not pause to question Mrs. Foley’s confidence in her own future state, but inquired, in a nasal key, “But what does he do, anyhow, my good woman?”
“Everything he ought to leave alone, ma’am. He is fond of low company, and cock-fighting, and betting, and all sorts of devilment. He gets in at night by the pantry window, and his mother thinks he is an archangel.”
“It’s a way mothers have. Poor woman!”
“Poor, is it! Faix, she’s a real rich woman, and small blame, and has the place in tip-top style, and keeps terrible state; but her servants is just starved.”
“Oh, mammy!” remonstrated Mary, “ye shouldn’t be talking so free to strangers.”
“A friend of Miss Nora’s is no stranger to me, and since she wants news, I bid to give her the truth. I know I’m crabbed, but I was reared on the Dorans’ land, and I’d put me hands under the Colonel’s feet. Sure, all the world knows the bad wife he had, and how she scolded him, and shamed him, and sold the buttermilk, and sent the old servants to the poorhouse! Well, well, I’ll say no more, I’ll say no more. Don’t mind me, ma’am. Mrs. Doran will be very sweet to you, and I’m only a bitter old woman. Oh, I wish ye could have seen the poor Colonel!—such a lovely, fine, tall gentleman, with a beautiful face, as if it was carved. Him and Miss Nora was always very thick!”
“Yes, so I’ve been told,” said the stranger.
“And Tom? Tom Grogan—an’ how is he? He was a fine, fresh-looking boy, and me own second cousin. Faix, if I was to say that to Mrs. Doran, she’d burn the house over me head.”