“Ora, Dan, acushla, won’t you wait even till I’ll make her sensible of what’s after happening...?”
“I’ll not! Where’s the use? It’s woman’s work, so it is! Let me go! Sure, haven’t I to be off about me business!”
And with that, Dan made a bolt through the door, and was out of sight, before you could look about you.
“What will I do at all at all?” said Kitty to herself, trembling and watching the door.
She hadn’t long to wait, fortunately, for that would only have made her more cowardly ... when up comes Rosy, and she with a young child in her arms. As thin as a rake, Rosy was, and her face as white as the snow.
“Och, Rosy, and is it yourself that’s in it!” said Kitty, speaking very fast; “come in here, ahagur, and sit down by the fire! Here, let me take the child from you; you must be tired! Sure, they say a hen is heavy if you carry it far enough, let alone a babby the size of this of yours, the Lord love her, I pray!”
Kitty talked like that, because she was so upset and confused. The baby was no size, scarcely. But it’s never too easy to know what to say to them that are in trouble. So it was the last word she wanted that Kitty could lay her tongue to then.
Rosy just sat down, and let Kitty take the child from her. And her two hands dropped into her lap, and she sat there, with the big, hollow eyes of her looking, looking all around, as if she was expecting to find there something she had lost; and every minute giving a bit of a cough, very low down and weak-sounding, as if that was all she was able to do. Her hands were burning hot, but she shivered now and then, and the wet from her clothes began rising in steam, with the heat of the fire, for Kitty had her by the hearth.
“Well, and how are ye yourself?” Kitty went on, “and this little one is cold, the cratyureen! I must get her a sup of warm milk. She’s about the one size with our own babby here, that’s asleep above in the room....”
“Ay, poor little Bride, that is,” said Rosy; “she’s all I have now, since I lost poor Art....”