“When Mary saw me, she burst into tears, and hung about my neck like a child. She whispered that she was not long for this world, that Philip had forgotten her, that she should never be happy more. She would obey her parents and die—my mistress had warned me to hear all and say nothing. I comforted poor Mary as well as I could, and was asked to the wedding the next day—I told my mistress, and again she saw the policeman. O, aunt, wasn’t it cruel of the mistress not to trust me? I didn’t care what she had to say, but I did want to be trusted. She said she did not fear my zeal, only my discretion. Wasn’t it hard? “I went to the wedding—there was the Priest, a fine, ould, ancient Clargy, of the right sort: there was the bridegroom, looking pale and wicked, with as much finery on him as would set up a jeweler’s shop. There was the father and mother, all excited; there were a couple of bridesmaids, new-fangled acquaintances, and two or three strangers, friends of the bridegroom’s, that Mr. and Mrs. Considine made a great fuss over, and called by the finest of names: there was a dinner, half-laid out in an upper room, that no one on the banks of the Shannon ever saw the like of: little puff things, all ornamented out by a real confectioner, in a white apron, such a sight of folly and nonsense. I was quite set on one side, and looked on any thing but kindly by the whole of them, except the old man, who kept on talking about his money. They seemed all unnatural to me, as if they only wanted the bride as a part of the ceremony, while all over the world, if a woman is ever as a queen, it’s from the morning till the evening of her wedding day, what she is after that depends upon another. The bridesmaids kept going in and out, and at last, one had the manners to tell me, the bride wanted me. I knew that long ago. “She was standing like a spirit, all in white, in the middle of her little room. She seemed turned into stone, stiff and stark as a corpse in its shroud: her mother was wringing her hands by her side, her face like scarlet, and if ever she spoke with a brogue she did then. “‘Och Mary a lanna machree!—Sure it isn’t disgracing us you’d be, going back of your word, Mary, my own darlin’ child. Sure, darlin’, I hated the very ground yer father walked on, even after I had married him a good while. I was disappointed in him, dear: but when I got over thinking of love, and all that sort of nonsense, when my heart dried up, and I was all head, I knew what a fine, savin’ man I had got, who understood the value, even of a brass farthing: he was _ould_ enough to be my father—let alone yours; but what does that signify, he helped me to grow ould before my time: and look at the money he’s able to give you, and win you, Mary _mavourneen_—what’s come to you, child? sure you consented all out, and what ails you now?’ “I pressed her cold hands within mine: they felt turned into bone, cold and hard and dry.