“Now, you won't breathe this to any human creature?”
“Is it me? Arrah! little you know the woman you're spakin' to. Divil a mortal could beat me at keepin' a saicret, at any rate; an' when you tell me this, maybe I'll let you know one or two that'll be worth hearin'.”
“Well,” continued Alley, “it's this—Never call my mistress Lady Lucy, because she doesn't like it.”
This was an apple from the shores of the Dead Sea. Nancy's face bore all the sudden traces of disappointment and mortification; and, from a principle of retaliation, she resolved to give her companion a morsel from the same fruit.
“Now, Nancy,” continued the former, “what's this you have to tell us?”
“But you swear not to breathe it to man, woman, or child, boy or girl, rich or poor, livin' or dead?”
“Sartainly I do.”
“Well, then, it's this. I understand that Docthor Scareman isn't likely to have a family. Now, ahagur, if you spake, I'm done, that's all.”
Having been then called away to make arrangements necessary to Lucy's. comfort, their dialogue was terminated before she could worm out of Alley the cause of her mistress's visit.
“She's a cunnin' ould hag,” said the latter, when the other had gone. “I see what she wants to get out o' me; but it's not for nothing Miss Lucy has trusted me, an' I'm not the girl to betray her secrets to them that has no right to know them.”