“'Pip, pip!' What in the world's 'Pip, pip?' The child is Brother William's child, to be sure,” said Kate, who always referred to the Dyce relations as if they were her own. “You have heard of Brother William?”
“Him that was married to the play-actress and never wrote home?” shouted the letter-carrier. “He went away before my time. Go on; quick, for I'm in a desperate hurry this mornin'.”
“Well, he died abroad in Chickagoo—God have mercy on him dying so far away from home, and him without a word of Gaelic in his head!—and a friend o' his father's bringing the boy home to his aunties.”
“Where in the world's Chickagoo?” bellowed the postman.
“In America, of course—where else would it be but in America?” said Kate, contemptuously. “Where is your education not to know that Chickagoo is in America, where the servant-maids have a pound a week of wages, and learn the piano, and can get married when they like quite easy?”
“Bless me! do you say so?” cried the postman, in amazement, and not without a pang of jealousy.
“Yes, I say so!” said Kate, in the snappish style she often showed to the letter-carrier. “And the child is coming this very day with the coach-and-twice from Maryfield railway station—oh, them trains! them trains! with their accidents; my heart is in my mouth to think of a child in them. Will you not come round to the back and get the mistress's New Year dram? She is going to give a New Year dram to every man that calls on business this day. But I will not let you in, for it is in my mind that you would not be a lucky first-foot.”
“Much obleeged,” said the postman, “but ye needna be feared. I'm not allowed to go dramming at my duty. It's offeecial, and I canna help it. If it was not offeecial, there's few letter-carriers that wouldna need to hae iron hoops on their heids to keep their brains from burstin' on the day efter New Year.”
Kate heard a voice behind her, and pulled her head in hurriedly with a gasp, and a cry of “Mercy, the start I got!” while the postman fled on his rounds. Miss Dyce stood behind, in the kitchen, indignant.
“You are a perfect heartbreak, Kate,” said the mistress. “I have rung for breakfast twice and you never heard me, with your clattering out there to the letter-carrier. It's a pity you cannot marry the glee party, as Mr. Dyce calls him, and be done with it.”