him and then laying him out and then the coffin and then arranging
about the Mass in the chapel. Only for Father O'Rourke I don't
know what we'd done at all. It was him brought us all them flowers
and them two candlesticks out of the chapel and wrote out the
notice for the Freeman's General and took charge of all the papers
for the cemetery and poor James's insurance."

"Wasn't that good of him?" said my aunt

Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

"Ah, there's no friends like the old friends," she said, "when all is
said and done, no friends that a body can trust."

"Indeed, that's true," said my aunt. "And I'm sure now that he's
gone to his eternal reward he won't forget you and all your
kindness to him."

"Ah, poor James!" said Eliza. "He was no great trouble to us. You
wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know
he's gone and all to that...."

"It's when it's all over that you'll miss him," said my aunt.

"I know that," said Eliza. "I won't be bringing him in his cup of
beef-tea any me, nor you, ma'am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor
James!"

She stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said
shrewdly: