"Heavens knows it's hard enough to be married to a baseball man," she said as she bit a thread, "him makin' base hits in his sleep and worrying the little hair he has left off his head, without havin' a girl that ought to be thinkin' of dresses and hats wantin' to din baseball into my ears all day. My dear, never marry a ball player."
"You appear to be pretty well satisfied with yours, Mother Clancy," teased the girl. "Maybe I'll find one as fine some day"——
"I'm thinkin' you've found yours now," replied Mrs. Clancy, without glancing up from her work. "A nice bye, too, although they do say the red-headed ones are hot tempered."
"Why, Mother Clancy! How dare you!" the girl expostulated, reddening.
"If you're thinkin' to deceive Ellen Clancy, you're sore mistaken," replied the manager's wife. "My Willie says I can tell when young people are in love before they know it themselves, an' ye and the red-headed McCarthy boy has all the symptoms. 'Tis a nice boy he is, too, and you'll be doin' well."
"But after ye've been married as long as we have ye'll not be wantin' to see many ball games. Many's the time I've begged Willie to quit it and get a little house out in the country, with a bit of green grass and maybe a flower bed and a little garden and a porch, and maybe a chicken yard, and let me end my days in peace, out of the sound of crowds and yellin' maniacs. Eighteen year I've ridden with him on cars smellin' of arnica, and with the train dust an' cinders in me eyes an' hair, and I long for peace. Only one season I've missed—'twas when little Mar-rtin was born"——
She snuffled a little and dropped her work to wipe her eyes hastily. It was fifteen years since their only baby had come and gone in a short year, to leave them closer to each other, but each with a heart pain that never ceased.
A bell boy interrupted her lecture to bring in a card, and Mrs. Clancy, glancing at it, passed it over to Miss Tabor.
"'Tis for you, Betty girl," she said. "And, Mother of Mary, she'll see us this way"——
Betty Tabor sat staring at the card, at first puzzled, then in a panic of mingled emotions.