"Quite well, thank you," says Monica. "It was only yesterday Aunt Priscilla was saying she should come down and see old Mrs. Daly."
"She's as welcome as the flowers in May whenever she comes," says the daughter-in-law. "D'ye hear that, mother? Miss Priscilla's comin' to see ye, some day soon. Ay, 'tis a good friend she always was to the poor, summer an' winter; an' isn't it wondherful now, Miss Monica, how she's kept her figure all through? Why," raising her hands with an expressive gesture of astonishment, "'twas Friday week I saw her, an' I said to meself, says I, she's the figure o' a young girl, I says. Ye'll take a taste o' this home-made cake, alanna."
She is made happy forever by Kit's unmistakable enjoyment of this last-named luxury.
"Ay, she's an iligant figure even now," says Mrs. Moloney, in her depressing voice. "But time an' throuble is cruel hard on some of us. I had a figure meself when I was young," with a heartrending sigh.
"Ye were always slight, me dear, an' ye're slight now too," says Mrs. Daly, tenderly. "I niver see the like o'ye for keepin' off the flesh. Why, I remember ye well as a slip o' a girl, before yer blessed babby was born, an' ye were a screed, me dear,—a screed."
"Yes, I was always ginteel," says Mrs. Moloney, openly consoled. Still she sighs, and sips her tea with a mournful air. Mrs. Daly is drinking hers with much appreciation out of her saucer, it being considered discourteous to offer anything to a guest without partaking of the same one's self.
At this moment a little cooing sound coming from the other corner of the fireplace makes itself heard. Instantly the old woman stooping over the turf embers rouses herself, and, turning, puts out her withered hand lovingly towards what looks like a box covered with colored stuff of some sort. Young Mrs. Daly rises too, precipitately and, hurrying across the kitchen, bends over the box.
"Ay, she's awake sure enough!" says the old woman, who has quite brightened into life. "See how she looks at ye, Molly! The colleen of the world, she was! asthore machree-sthig."
Many another fond name is muttered, such as "pulse o' my heart," and such like, before Mrs. Daly junior emerges from the supposed box, but not empty-handed.
"Oh! it is the baby!" cry Monica and Kit, in a breath. "Oh! what a darling baby! and what red, red cheeks, just like a June rose!"