She slid her hand into her husband's and they sat for a while in silence. Then, half to herself, and out of a very different train of thought she said: "Just fancy them never crying once for their mother."
"Talking of friends," said Sarah, and fastidiously cleared her throat. "Talking of friends, I wonder now what has become of one of those young gentlemen I met at your wedding. He was ... let me see ... why, I declare if I haven't forgotten his name!"
"Oh, I know who you mean—besides there was only one, Sarah," Mahony heard his wife reply, and therewith fall into her sister's trap. "You mean Purdy—Purdy Smith—who was Richard's best man."
"Smith?" echoed Sarah. "La, Polly! Why don't he make it Smythe?"
It was a warm evening some three weeks later. The store was closed to customers; but Mahony had ensconced himself in a corner of it with a book: since the invasion, this was the one place in which he could make sure of finding quiet. The sisters sat on the log-bench before the house; and, without seeing them, Mahony knew to a nicety how they were employed. Polly darned stockings, for John's children; Sarah was tatting, with her little finger stuck out at right angles to the rest. Mahony could hardly think of this finger without irritation: it seemed to sum up Sarah's whole outlook on life.
Meanwhile Polly's fresh voice went on, relating Purdy's fortunes. "He took part, you know, in the dreadful affair on the Eureka last Christmas, when so many poor men were killed. We can speak of it, now they've all been pardoned; but then we had to be very careful. Well, he was shot in the ankle, and will always be lame from it."
"What!—go hobbling on one leg for the remainder of his days? Oh, my dear!" said Sarah, and laughed.
"Yes, because the wound wasn't properly attended to—he had to hide about in the bush, for ever so long. Later on he went to the Beamishes, to be nursed. But by that time his poor leg was in a very bad state. You know he is engaged—or very nearly so—to Tilly Beamish."
"What?" said Sarah once more. "That handsome young fellow engaged to one of those vulgar creatures?"