But at long last, Moll, knowing that Mickey was getting worn out with it all and she herself in the want of her supper, thought she’d put in her word.
So she said, “There now; too much laughing ends in crying. See here, Bridie, be a good child! Look at ... look at how well little Judy and Pat are behaving, playing about there and no bother to any one ...” and she pretended to be watching, or rather listening to a couple of children at the other end of the kitchen.
Brigid, that had been rushing about, laughing and shouting, stopped like a shot at that, and looked up at Moll.
“Where, where are they?” she said; “who’s Pat and Judy? ... where do you see them...?”
“Look at them! Off there, beyant your mammy’s spinning-wheel, hiding themselves ... that’s why you can’t see them ... and there, now! there they are, going off good to their beds as soon as they’re told....”
At that Brigid, who had been all noise and movement, stood still; and the laugh died off her lips, and her eyes grew big and shining, as she looked up, but seeming to see nothing. And then she lifted her little arms, and away she went, as if she was floating, floating, upon a wave of the sea. And as she crossed the floor and disappeared through the door of the kitchen, they could hear her saying in a half-whisper, “Are you there, Judy? Is Patsy with you?”
And then she’d go on to answer her own question, “Ay, indeed, are we here! and will be in bed and asleep before you....”
“And by that means,” said Moll, telling all this one day to Kitty Grennan, that she had called in to see on her rounds, “by that means, I got the better of the child, and she was no more trouble that evening, and Marg was able to attend to the business and Heffernan himself, and get all done. It’s no way to be going on, to have everybody waiting in order to humour a child!”
“If it was my case,” said Kitty, “I’d just give her a few little slaps....”
“So you would, and you’d be right, too. But Marg is that particular! And what is little Brigeen there, only a cuckoo?”