On the following morning Lord Ballindine as he had appointed to do, drove over to Dunmore, to settle with Martin about the money, and, if necessary, to go with him to the attorney’s office in Tuam. Martin had as yet given Daly no answer respecting Barry Lynch’s last proposal; and though poor Anty’s health made it hardly necessary that any answer should be given, still Lord Ballindine had promised to see the attorney, if Martin thought it necessary. 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 raving² in delirium³, 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, standing⁵ at the foot of the bed with a big tea-pot in her hand, and begging in a whining⁶ 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 fixed⁷ the big tea-pot among the embers, and held a slop-bowl of tea in her lap, discoursing⁸ 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, boding⁹ 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 Virgin¹⁰ prothect us from all harum! it niver war lucky to have sthrangers dying in the house.’

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