"I bet I wouldn't!"
"Rosie, ye couldn't help yirself. Ye'd have to stand up for him even if he was a brute."
"Why would I have to?"
"Because he's your da. Is it possible, Rosie dear, that ye don't yet know 'tis a woman's first duty to stand up for a man if he's her da, or her brother, or her husband, or her son? Mercy on us, where would we be if she didn't? Have ye ever heard me, all the years of your life, breathe a whisper against Jamie O'Brien?"
"I should think not!" To Rosie this seemed a very poor example of the principle in question. "How could you? Dad never even beats the boys, let alone you and me!"
Mrs. O'Brien smacked her lips pensively. "No, he don't beat me." She sighed slowly. "I mean now he don't."
Rosie looked at her mother with startled eyes. "Ma, what do you mean?"
Mrs. O'Brien sighed again, and took up her darning. "Nuthin' at all, Rosie. I don't know what I'm sayin'. I can't gab another minute, for I must finish this sock. So run off, like a good child, and don't bother me."
"But, Ma"—Rosie's voice dropped to a whisper, and a look of horror came into her face—"do you mean he used to—beat you?"
"Rosie dear, stop pesterin' me with your questions. Far be it from me to set child against father, and, besides, as you know yourself, he's behavin' now. What's past is past. I've said this much to you, Rosie, so's to give you a hint of the ragin' lions that these here quiet, soft-spoken little lambs of men keep caged up inside o' them. Oh, I tell you, Rosie dear, beware o' that kind of a man, for you never know when the lion in him is goin' to break loose and leap out upon you. Ah, I know what I'm sayin' to me everlastin' sorrow!"