"Yes," Mrs. McMahon went on, unctuously; "setting up with the sick, and laying out the dead. Faith, sometimes, I have to be nurse and undertaker, all in one."
"So," Ruth gushed, unrolling her eyes with some difficulty, "sitting up with the sick, and laying out the dead, is your great work!"
"Oh, not that entirely," the Irishwoman continued, "not that entirely! Of course, I have to run my house; and, now and then, when a family's too poor to have a doctor, 'tis myself that brings a baby into the world on the side, so to speak. Having had five myself, I'm quite familiar with the how of it."
There came a horrified gasp from the women listening.
"Cheese it!" Sadie whispered, fiercely. From her study of the favorite author, she surmised that Mrs. McMahon was wandering far afield from the small talk of a Clara Vere De Vere. "Your subject for conversation is really positively shocking and disgusting," she added, aloud.
Cicily attempted yet once again to establish harmony among discordant elements.
"Mrs. McMahon has done so much good in homes of suffering," she said gently, "that she's very direct in her speech."
The good-natured Irishwoman herself chose to make the amende honorable, but after her own fashion.
"Sure, excuse me, ladies," she exclaimed, heartily. "Faith, I didn't mean to speak of anything so unfashionable as the bearing of children."
Mrs. Delancy and a friend entered at this moment, to the great relief of Cicily, who greeted her kinswoman warmly, and at once led her toward Mrs. McMahon.