"The wedding will take place at our house, and I'm here especially to ask you to come," she added.
"And what would ye be thinkin' o' me, without fittin' clothes, a-mixin' wi' all yer foine folk?" Nancy asked.
"You are my friend, Mrs. McVeigh, and your dress will not alter that. Promise you'll come."
"Well, it's more than loikely I will," Nancy assented. "I'm thinkin' o' givin' up the bar and livin' quiet loike fer the rest o' me days," she remarked, reflectively.
Sophia Piper's heart gave a bound of delight, and she seized Nancy's hands in both of hers.
"I'm so glad to hear you say it," she burst out, and then she added, seriously, "Can you afford it?"
"Ye see," Nancy explained, "I've had a letter from my son Corney, an' he says he is goin' to make me a steady allowance. Anyhow, I'm tired o' the noise o' drunken men and the accusin' glances o' the good folk that passes. I've decided that it's not a fittin' occupation fer the mother o' the future mayor o' Chicago to be sellin' the stuff. Others want the license, an' they can have it. I used to like the servin' o' the public, but somehow me mind has been changed o' late," she sighed.
When young John Keene and Miss Mary Trevor were made a happy unit the next week, Nancy was there with a new silk dress, which she and Katie Duncan had worked long into the previous nights to finish. Her sweet old face was radiant with smiles, and when it was all over, and she had a chance to speak alone to Sophia Piper, she whispered:
"I'm celebratin' doubly, ye see, miss; I've just sold me stock o' spirits to the summer hotel people and had a big sign put over the bar door marked 'Privit.'"
"God bless you, Nancy McVeigh," Sophia Piper whispered back.