“Sit down there, a minute or two,” said Margaret, and she pulled over a big chair, and put him into it. It chanced to be the very chair he always sat in.
“Rest yourself now, and I’ll do what’s required....”
That was always the way with Margaret. If anything had to be done, she didn’t stop to ask, “Whose business is it?” and neither would she interfere. But if she saw no one else making a move, then she did the thing herself, and without making any talk about it.
Besides that, she felt very sorry for old Mickey, seeing him so helpless. As long as he was moving about, and had his stick, he managed right enough. But without it, and lying as he did after the fall, he was as helpless as an infant.
“I believe the fire is black out, this minute!” said Heffernan, beginning to laugh, and half ashamed of the fright he had got, when he fell, and only into cold ashes.
“Sure it won’t long be so!” said Margaret; and she set to work and in no time she had a blazing hearth, and the kettle on the boil.
“Do I hear the water sizzling out into the fire already,” said Moll; “that’s a good sign of you, Marg!”
“How so?” said Marg.
“Sure, doesn’t all the world know that when a girl has good success with a fire, and it kindles up quick for her, that’s a certain sign that her ‘boy’ is thinking of her!”
Marg’s face fell, but neither Heffernan nor old Moll perceived the change in her. So she pulled herself together, and got the supper ready for the three of them, as if she had been used to the house all her life. And when they were done, she washed up and put all straight, while another would be thinking about it; and Heffernan sat in his big chair, with the pipe in his mouth, and watched Marg moving about, and looked very contented.