The other women understood, and avoided her. That made her angry, and the more watchful and treacherous.
One day she found a biscuit from the officers' table in a cell. She reasoned that Flannagan must have put it there, because Flannagan and the girl in whose cell she found it were great friends. That morning the Housekeeper had been fretted with Flannagan, and Berry had got wind of it. Here was the opportunity to exercise her vocation. She slipped the biscuit under her apron, took it into the officers' kitchen, and showed it to the Housekeeper.
Flannagan must have done it, because she had given offense in the morning; and she was forthwith dismissed to the shop.
A woman who came in a few days before, on a long sentence, had been discovered to be a nice needle-woman, smart and pretty; whereas Flannagan was plain and slow. Occasion was thus made to effect the change, so my women said. And what they failed to find out in that institution was beyond investigation.
XV.
A DAY OF ODDS AND ENDS.
The day commenced at odds. In the morning Mrs. Hardhack came flying into the kitchen, and demanded, from O'Brien, something for one of her girls to eat.
"She has fainted away for the want of food! She has had no breakfast! How did you dare to keep her breakfast from her!"
O'Brien kept her temper wonderfully. She answered very quietly,—
"I'm sure she had the same as the rest if she had been a mind to taken it."
"How do you dare to stand there and answer me in that way? I'll have you punished if you dare to open your mouth again."