"Savin' me work, is it? Faith, he ought to be thinkin' of savin' his pinnies, slashin' thim around to the likes of McCarthy." Then the remembrance of her spoiled tirade came to her, as she thought of her ruined dinner and the Bishop. "What did he do that fer to a man who was the Vicar Gineral? But God forgive me. An auld woman niver knows how to hauld her tongue. Sure, the Father is a saint anyhow, whativer the Bishop, bad scran to him, is."
There was the eternal maternal in Ann, if nothing else was left of the eternal feminine. It is the eternal maternal that fights and hates, without knowing why—and loves and protects too—still without knowing, or asking, a reason.
In the kitchen Ann saw Uncle Mac taking his ease by the table. He often dropped in for a chat.
"Where's the Father?" he asked.
"Gone to look over McCarthy ag'in," she answered, with pleased anticipation of the things she could safely say, without rebuke, of the parish's chronic hypochondriac.
But Uncle Mac, while he never rebuked, yet was adroit in warding off temptations to break the Commandments. He began to chuckle as if he had just heard a wonderful story.
Ann looked up. "What's biting ye this mornin'?"
"'Tis what the Father said to Brinn, the man that runs the Weekly Herald. Ye know him?"
"I know no good av him."
"He's not a bad fella a-tall. Ye know he has a head as bald as an aig. Well, he was goin' to the Knights of Pythias ball, and was worrited about a fancy suit to wear; fer it appears that thim that goes must be rigged up. He met the Father in Jim's drug sthore on the corner, and he ups and axes him to tell him what to wear."