“Who’s she?”
“The sister of the last of The O’Mahonys before you, sir, who married another of the name only distantly related, and has been a widow these five years, and would be owner of the estate if her brother had broken the entail as he always intinded, and never did by rayson that there was so much dhrinking and sleeping and playing ‘forty-five’ at Mike Leary’s to be done, he’d no time for lawyers. Mrs. Fergus has been having the use of the property since his death, sir, being the nearest visible heir.”
“And so my comin’ threw her out, eh? Did she take it pritty hard?”
“Sir, loyalty to The O’Mahony is so imbedded in the brest of every sowl in Muirisc, that if she made a sign to resist your pretinsions, her own frinds would have hooted her. She may have some riservations deep down in her heart, but she’s too thrue an O’Mahony to revale thim.”
More punch was mixed, and The O’Mahony was about to ask further questions concerning the widow he had dispossessed, when the door opened and a novel procession entered the room.
Three venerable women, all of about the same height, and all clad in a strange costume of black gowns and sweeping black vails, their foreheads and chins covered with stiff bands of white linen, and long chains of beads ending in a big silver-gilt cross swinging from their girdles, advanced in single file toward the table—then halted, and bowed slightly.
O’Daly and Jerry had risen to their feet upon the instant of this curious apparition, but the The O’Mahony kept his seat, and nodded with amiability.
“How d’ do?” he said, lightly. “It’s mighty neighborly of you to run in like this, without knockin’, or standin’ on ceremony. Won’t you sit down, ladies? I guess you can find chairs.”
“These are the Ladies of the Hostage’s Tears, your honor,” O’Daly hastened to explain, at the same time energetically winking and motioning to him to stand.
But The O’Mahony did not budge.