“Do that, God help ye!” said Kitty; “sure it will only ease your heart; only not to be fretting too much....”
“And why wouldn’t I fret for Art, and cry him too, and he the best man to me that ever stood in shoes! No matter what notion I took, even the time I got the feathery hat with his week’s wages, he never as much as said to me, ‘Ill you done it, Rosy!’”
And Kitty thought to let her have her cry out, and that she would say nothing more to stop her. But Rosy lifted herself up again at that word about Art, and said she, “What at all am I doing spending me time here, instead of going off home at once? Sure won’t me mother be as bad as meself, very nigh-hand, about Art, that she often said was the same as a son to her?”
And she was making for the door, when Kitty said, “Rosy, acushla, won’t you stop a bit longer, till the weight of the rain is over? And I’m just about hanging down the kettle, to wet a cup of tea. It will put some heart into ye. Sure it will only have your mother worse, if you were to go in and you so poor-looking in the face. Fretting she’ll be, then; and you with a cold upon you!”
Rosy was after giving a few little coughs out of her again.
“I’ll wait for no tea here!” said Rosy; “can’t I get all I want, at home with her?”
“Don’t be asking to go there, Rosy!” said Kitty. And there she stopped; and of all the white, frightened faces that ever was seen, Rosy’s was the worst.
“Why? is she dead too?” says she, as calm and quiet as if she was just asking, “Is she gone to the chapel?”
“Och no! not at all! Dead? Why, what put that foolishness into your head? But ... well, you see, she wasn’t to say too well at all this length of time....”
“Sure that’s no news!” said Rosy; “out of her health she has been for long enough. And isn’t that all the more reason for I to be with her, that knows all her little ways...?”