She'll be after dressing in the heighth of grandeur; and stop she
will at every house on the way to show herself off and tell them
where she's going, and fill the whole parish with spite and envy.
But sure, she shouldn't keep you waiting, sir.

SIR PEARCE. Oh, that's all right: she must be indulged on an
occasion like this. I'm sorry my wife is in London: she'd have
been glad to welcome your mother.

O'FLAHERTY. Sure, I know she would, sir. She was always a kind
friend to the poor. Little her ladyship knew, God help her, the
depth of divilment that was in us: we were like a play to her.
You see, sir, she was English: that was how it was. We was to her
what the Pathans and Senegalese was to me when I first seen them:
I couldn't think, somehow, that they were liars, and thieves, and
backbiters, and drunkards, just like ourselves or any other
Christians. Oh, her ladyship never knew all that was going on
behind her back: how would she? When I was a weeshy child, she
gave me the first penny I ever had in my hand; and I wanted to
pray for her conversion that night the same as my mother made me
pray for yours; and--

SIR PEARCE [scandalized]. Do you mean to say that your mother
made you pray for MY conversion?

O'FLAHERTY. Sure and she wouldn't want to see a gentleman like
you going to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up
my sister Annie on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She'd
rob you; and she'd lie to you; and she'd call down all the
blessings of God on your head when she was selling you your own