'Come, father, let's hear it.'
'This was the way of it. Maybe you never remarked—of course you didn't, for you were only up there a couple of times—that opposite Bob's lodgings there was a mighty sweet-looking crayture, a widow-woman; she was dressed in very discreet black, and had a sorrowful look about her that somehow or other, I think, made her even more interesting.
'“I'd like to know that widow,” said Bob; “for now that the fellows have a warrant against me, I could spend my days so pleasantly over there, comforting and consoling her.”
'“Whisht,” said I, “don't you see that she is in grief?”
'“Not so much in grief,” said he, “but she lets down two beautiful braids of her brown hair under her widow's cap; and whenever you see that, Father Tom, take my word for it, the game's not up.”
'I believe there was some reason in what he said, for the last time I went up to see him he had the window open, and he was playing “Planxty Kelly” with all his might on an old fiddle; and the widow would come now and then to the window to draw the little muslin curtain, or she would open it to give a halfpenny to the beggars, or she would hold out her hand to see if it was raining—and a beautiful lily-white hand it was; but all the time, you see, it was only exchanging looks they were. Bob was a little ashamed when he saw me in the room, but he soon recovered.
'“A very charming woman that Mrs. Moriarty is,” said he, closing the window. “It 's a cruel pity that her fortune is all in the Grand Canal—I mean Canal debentures. But indeed it comes pretty much to the same thing.”
'And so he went on raving about the widow; for by this time he knew all about her. Her maiden name was Cassidy, and her father a distiller; and, in fact, Bob was quite delighted with his beautiful neighbour. At last I bid him good-bye, promising to call for him at eight o'clock to come over here to you; for you see there was a backdoor to the house that led into a small alley, by which Mahon used to make his escape in the evening. He was sitting, it seems, at his window, looking out for the widow, who for some cause or other hadn't made her appearance the entire of the day. There he sat with his hand on his heart, and a heavenly smile upon him for a good hour, sipping a little whisky-and-water between times, to keep up his courage.