The storm, and the preparations for the wedding, raged on with almost equal violence, within and without the walls of No. 6, The Mall. From the moment that daylight began on the fateful Wednesday, the day before the wedding, and until it ceased, Mrs. Mangan's face recurred at the window of the dining room, full of protest, primarily against the arbiter of the weather, who had sent so supreme a hindrance to all her preparations, secondarily, against the shops of Cluhir, whose dilatoriness in matters of the highest importance "had her," so she affirmed frequently, "that much distracted, that it would be a comfort and a consolation to her if she were stretched cold in her grave."
At intervals during the feverish day, beings would come rushing through the torrents, like trout in a swirling brook, and would fling themselves and their parcels in through the door that Mrs. Mangan was generally ready to open for them. Frantic messages from bridesmaids about their costumes, belated wedding presents, all the surf and foam that is flung up by the waves of a wedding, broke upon No. 6. The bride elect, pale and preoccupied, ("pale," that is to say, "for Tishy," as one of her compeers observed, "flushed for any one else!") wrote notes, and exhibited presents, and packed clothes, and rode the tempest with a fortitude that was worthy of the Big Doctor's daughter. But even Tishy began to fail as darkness drew in.
"I can't stand this house any more," she said to her mother, "rain or no rain, I'm going out! I didn't see Mrs. Whelply about Kathleen's" wreath that she wrote about——"
"You'll be drowned," said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully; "and sure if Larry comes over, what'll I say to him?"
"He'll not come!" said Tishy, scornfully. "What a fool he is, a day like this!"
"And they say the river's up in the houses down at the end of the town," went on Mrs. Mangan. "In the name of pity why wouldn't you be satisfied to stay at home for this once, and you leaving me for good to-morrow!"
"Well, I'll die if I stay in this messed-up hole any longer!" said Tishy. "I don't care how wet I get—"
Presently the front door slammed behind her; her mother said to herself that of all the headstrong pieces—! And, further, that she trusted in God Larry Coppinger would be able to make a hand of her; she then, with the resignation that experience teaches to defeated mothers, went to the kitchen, and prepared a tray with tea, and carried it herself up to the Doctor's surgery.
"Francis, may I come in? I have tea for you and meself."