Are you the
woman who takes care of her?"
"I've plenty to do minding my own, I can tell ye," she grumbled, "but I
couldn't abear to see t' ould lass taken to a 'sylum. They're queer
places some on 'em, as I know. And as to t' House! there's a many folks
says, 'Well, if t' guardians won't give her no relief, let her go in.'
But she got hold on me one day, and she says, 'Sally, darling' (that's
t' ould lass's way, is calling ye Darling. It sounds soft, but she is
but an old Irish woman, as one may say), 'if ever,' she says, 'you hear
tell of their coming to fetch me, GOD bless ye,' she says, 'just give me
a look out of your eye, and I'm gone. I'll be no more trouble to any
one,' she says, 'and maybe I'll make it worth your while too.'"
At this point in her narrative the woman looked mysterious, nodded her
head, craned over the banisters to see that no one was near, slapped the
children and shook up the baby as a sort of mechanical protest against
the noise they were making (as to effects they only howled the louder),
and drawing nearer to us, spoke in lower tones:
"T' old lass has money, it's my belief, though she gives me nowt for her
lodging, and she spends nowt on herself.
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