"Indeed I shouldn't like to have a child if I thought it was to a purty thing like that she'd be sent to school!"
"Nor me," said the old lady, from whom the promise of motherhood had departed for many a long year.
They shook in righteous anger and strong detestation of the sin of Rebecca Kerr, and together they held council as to what might be the best thing to do? They closed the letter, and Mrs. Brannagan again stuck it into her bosom.... What should they do? The children must be saved from contamination anyhow.... An approach to solution of the difficulty immediately presented itself, for there was Mrs. Wyse herself just passing down the street with her ass-load of children. Mrs. Brannagan rushed out of the office and called:
"Mrs. Wyse, I want to see you in private for just a minute!"
The schoolmistress bent over the back of the trap, and they whispered for several minutes. At last, out of her shocked condition, Mrs. Wyse was driven to exclaim:
"Well now, isn't that the limit?"
It seemed an affront to her authority that another should have first discovered it, so she was anxious to immediately recover her lost position of superiority.
"Sure I was having my suspicions of her since ever she come back from the Christmas holidays, and even Monica McKeon too, although she's a single girl and not supposed to know. It's a terrible case, Mrs. Brannagan."
"Terrible, Mrs. Wyse. One of the terriblest ever happened in the valley.... And before the children and all."
"God bless and save us! But we must only leave it in Father O'Keeffe's hands. He'll know what is best to do, never fear. I'll send for him as soon as I get to the school."