“You’ll be drowned,” said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully; “and sure if Larry comes over, what’ll I say to him?”

“He’ll not come!” said Tishy, scornfully.  “What a fool he is, a day like this!”

“And they say the river’s up in the houses down at the end of the town,” went on Mrs. Mangan.  “In the name of pity why wouldn’t you be satisfied to stay at home for this once, and you leaving me for good to-morrow!”

“Well, I’ll die if I stay in this messed-up hole any longer!” said Tishy.  “I don’t care how wet I get—­”

Presently the front door slammed behind her; her mother said to herself that of all the headstrong pieces—!  And, further, that she trusted in God Larry Coppinger would be able to make a hand of her; she then, with the resignation that experience teaches to defeated mothers, went to the kitchen, and prepared a tray with tea, and carried it herself up to the Doctor’s surgery.

“Francis, may I come in?  I have tea for you and meself.”

“Come in to be sure,” replied Francis, hospitably.  “I’ll be glad of a cup.  Wait and I’ll light the gas.”

The Big Doctor was a faithful man, and loved his wife.  He treated her as a slave, but it was thus that she not only expected, but preferred to be treated, and the position of a favourite slave may not be without its compensations.  He established her in the Patients’ chair, arranging it so that the crude flare of the incandescent gas should not be in her eyes, and then sat down in his own huge chair, in comfortable proximity to her and the tea-tray.

“Well, Annie, me girl,” he said.  “You’re looking tired enough, but there isn’t one will touch you in looks to-morrow for all that!  Your own daughter included!”

“Go on out of that, Francis, with your nonsense!” replied Mrs. Mangan, with a coquettish slap on the Doctor’s great round knee, “you ought to be learning sense for yourself by this time!”

“Maybe I’m not so wanting in sense as you might think, Annie!” he answered, his watchful, grey-blue eyes under the over-hanging, musical brows, softening as he looked at her.  I think one way and another, I haven’t made altogether such a bad fist of things!”

“Darling lovey!” cried Mrs. Mangan, adoringly.  “How would you think I meant it!”

“Well, I didn’t either!” said the Doctor, with a satisfied laugh, “but I’m inclined to think that I’ve done better than you’re aware of, or that you might give me credit for either!”

“All I’m aware of,” said Mrs. Mangan, sitting erect, with a look of defiance, “is that there’s nothing in this world, no, nor in Ireland neither, that you couldn’t do if you chose to put your mind to it!  So now!  You needn’t be talking to me like that!  Pretending I don’t know you after all those years!”

“Well, listen to me now,” said the Doctor, well pleased, ’Tell me what d’ye think of this marriage of Tishy’s?”

“You know well what I think of it, Francis, and what everybody thinks of it, too!  The smartest and the richest—­”