“There’s Mary Doody’s,” said the man of business, sadly; “at the least, you might call it a shop, though it’s only herself knows what she sells. That’s the only one.” He came to the doorway, and pointed down the street. “The last house, it is. If ’twas anything in the wurruld now, except pins, I’d have it.” A little way from the shop, he caught them up, breathless, but aflame with business enterprise. “Is it from Moroney’s ye are? Would ye tell Mrs. Moroney that I’ve the grandest bit of pork ever she seen—killed yesterday, an’ they me own pigs that I rared on the place. Peter Grogan—sure, she’ll know me.” “Thank you,” Jim said, hurriedly. “Good night.” “Good night,” responded Mr. Grogan. “Tell her to-morrow’s early closing day, an’ I could bring one over in the little ass-cart as aisy as not.” The last words were uttered in a high shriek as the distance widened between himself and the Linton party. “Pork is a good thing,” said Mr. Linton, sententiously. “Isn’t it, Jim?” “If you’d seen the room I saw!” said his son, with feeling. “Such a bedroom: and the gentleman in bed, and I should say very drunk. No, I don’t think I’ll deliver that message.” “I wouldn’t,” said Mr. Linton. Mary Doody’s place of business stood back a little from the road. There was no window for the display of goods, and the door was shut. The uninitiated might, indeed, have been pardoned for failing to regard it as a shop, or for passing by, unnoticed, the brief legend over the door which stated that Mrs. Doody’s residence was a Generil Store, and added that she was further empowered to sell stout and porter. The inhabitants of Gortbeg, however, were clearly to be numbered among the initiated, for sounds of conviviality came, muffled, from within, and once a voice broke into a snatch of a song. Norah hesitated. “I suppose I needn’t knock.” “They might not hear you, if you did,” Jim said. He opened the door. Within, a long, low room was dim with a mixture of turf and tobacco smoke, and heavy with the fumes of porter. A swinging lamp shed a depressed ray over the scene. As her eyes grew accustomed to the smoky twilight, Norah made out a number of men and a few women sitting on benches near the fire, each with a mug that evidently held comforting liquor. Every one seemed to be talking at once; but a dead silence fell as the door opened on the unfamiliar figures. Norah resisted an inclination to turn and seek fresh air. An immensely fat woman, with a grimy shawl pinned across her bosom, waddled forward. “Good evening, dear,” she said, dividing the greeting impartially between Jim and Norah. “Good evening,” Norah responded. “This is a shop, isn’t it?” “It is, dear,” Mrs. Doody said, bridling a little at any doubt being cast on her emporium. “Were you wantin’——?” “Pins,” Norah said hastily. “Do you keep them?” “I dunno would I,” said Mary Doody, unconsciously echoing Mr. Grogan. “Pins. Would they be small pins, now?” “Yes—just common pins.”