The family were all in great confusion that morning, for Anty was very
bad--worse than she had ever been. She was in a paroxysm of fever, was
raving in delirium, and in such a state that Martin and his sister were
occasionally obliged to hold her in bed. Sally, the old servant, had
been in the room for a considerable time during the morning, standing
at the foot of the bed with a big tea-pot in her hand, and begging in a
whining voice, from time to time, that "Miss Anty, God bless her, might
get a dhrink of tay!" But, as she had been of no other service, and as
the widow thought it as well that she should not hear what Anty said
in her raving, she had been desired to go down-stairs, and was sitting
over the fire. She had fixed the big tea-pot among the embers, and held
a slop-bowl of tea in her lap, discoursing to Nelly, who with her hair
somewhat more than ordinarily dishevelled, in token of grief for Anty's
illness, was seated on a low stool, nursing a candle-stick.

"Well, Nelly," said the prophetic Sally, boding evil in her anger--for,
considering how long she had been in the family, she had thought
herself entitled to hear Anty's ravings; "mind, I tell you, good won't
come of this. The Virgin prothect us from all harum!--it niver war
lucky to have sthrangers dying in the house."

"But shure Miss Anty's no stranger."

"Faix thin, her words must be sthrange enough when the likes o' me
wouldn't be let hear 'em. Not but what I did hear, as how could I help
it? There'll be no good come of it. Who's to be axed to the wake, I'd
like to know."

"Axed to the wake, is it? Why, shure, won't there be rashions of ating