want strangers to see it."

"Ye'll just keep it there, then," replied Biddy, irately, "and don't go
an' insult me wid the show of it."

And she turned her back on me, whilst I drank my coffee, and ate some
excellent cakes, which formed part of her stock-in-trade. One of these
she insisted on my putting into my pocket "against the hungry hour." I
thanked her warmly for the gift, whereupon she became mollified, and
said I was kindly welcome; and whilst she was serving some customers, I
turned round and looked at the ship. Late as it was, people seemed very
busy about her, rather more so than about any I had seen. As I sat, I
was just opposite to a yawning hole in the ship's side, into which men
were noisily running great bales and boxes, which other men on board
were lowering into the depths of the vessel with very noisy machinery
and with much shouting in a sort of uncouth rhythm, to which the grating
and bumping of the crane and its chains was a trifle. I was so absorbed
by looking, and it was so impossible to hear anything else unless one
were attending, that I never discovered that Biddy and I were alone
again, till the touch of her hand on my head made me jump.

"I beg your pardon, Mother," I said; "I couldn't think what it was."

"I ax yours, dear. It's just the curls, and I'm the foolish woman to
look at 'em. Barrin' the hair, ye don't favour each other the laste."

I had really heard a good deal about Micky, and was getting tired of
him, and inclined to revert to my own affairs.

"Mother, do you know where this ship comes from?"