It was almost midnight when Nancy arrived at the tavern. She carried a key for the front door, and passed up through the deserted hallway to her room. A child's heavy breathing a few feet away told her that Katie Duncan was in dreamland. Jennie had left a lamp burning low on her table, and Nancy carried it over to the cot and looked at the little plump face of her latest adoption. "Her own mother would smile down from Hiven if she could see her now," she thought. Presently she set the lamp back on the table, and ensconced herself comfortably in her capacious rocking-chair. Directly in front of her, two photos were tacked on the wall, side by side, and her eyes centred upon them. One was that of a boy, sitting upright, dressed in a suit of clothes old-fashioned in cut and a size too large for his body. The other, that of a young man with an open, smiling countenance, a very high collar, and a coat of immaculate neatness of fit. It was a strange contrast, but Nancy saw them through the eye of a proud mother. A debate progressed within her mind for some time, and then she arose, with decision prominently expressed in her every movement. She unlocked a small drawer in the ancient black walnut bureau and withdrew a tattered wallet. Returning to her seat, she carefully spread out the contents, counting the value of each crumpled bill as she laid it on her knee.
"I'm not afeard o' old John Keene. There's sufficient to pay him his interest, and plenty left to keep Mary O'Neil at the hospital for a month or two," she muttered. She replaced the money with a sigh, but it was of pleasure, for Nancy never felt a pang when she had a good action to perform.
Next morning she sent Jennie over for Father Doyle, the parish priest. The good man was always pleased to call on Nancy, because she was a life-long friend, and her solid common-sense often helped him over the many difficulties which were continually cropping up in his work.
"It's something that has to be done at once, Father Doyle, and I think it lies with me to do it," she said, after they had gossiped awhile.
"I've known Mary O'Neil since she was the size o' my Katie, and many a day have I watched her and my boy Corney, as they played, before McVeigh was taken. It's no fault o' hers that their cupboard is empty, and it's something I can do that will not lose its value because of the habits o' the husband. But ye must arrange a compact with Bennet not to take another drop if I help him. He loves his wife and would be a good man to her if he could control his appetite."
"But ye will be damaging your trade with your precious sentiments," Father Doyle remarked, to test, in a joking way, the principles of his charitable parishioner.
"I'm no excusin' my business, Father Doyle, and ye've known me long enough to leave off askin' me such questions. I have never taken the bread out o' a livin' creature's mouth yet, to my knowledge, and another might run a much, rougher house, should I give it up."
"It's only a joke, I'm telling you," put in the priest, hastily; then he added, kindly, "You are a strange woman, Nancy McVeigh, and the road is no longer for your open doorway and the free pump. I have a mind to put in half of the amount with you in this case, though it is only one of many that I would do something to help if I could."
"Thank ye, Father Doyle. Ye have a keen understandin' o' what is good yerself; but ye'll be sure to name the compact with Bennet," cautioned Nancy, as she counted out fifty dollars from her assortment of bills.
"That I will," he answered.