"When my brother comes home from America," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "we'll go away from this part of the city at once. I suppose he'd want a rather big house on the south side--Rathfarnham or Terenure way, or, maybe, Donnybrook. Of course he'll ask me to mind the house for him and keep the servants in order, and provide a different dinner every day, and all that; while you could go out to the neighbors' places to play lawn tennis or cricket, and have lunch. It will be a very great responsibility." "What kind of dinners would you have?" said Mary. Mrs. Makebelieve's eyes glistened, and she leaned forward in the bed; but just as she was about to reply the laboring man in the next room slammed his door, and went thundering down the stairs. In an instant Mrs. Makebelieve bounded from her bed; three wide twists put up her hair, eight strange billow-like movements put on her clothes; as each article of clothing reached a definite point on her person Mary stabbed it swiftly with a pin--four ordinary pins in this place, two safety pins in that: then Mrs. Makebelieve kissed her daughter sixteen times and fled down the stairs and away to her work. XXI In a few minutes Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as every woman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands, for in the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures without joy, without lightness, lacking even the common, elemental interest in their own children, and capable of detestably misinterpreting the conversation of their wives. It is only by mixing amongst other men that this malignant humor may be dispelled. To them the company of men is like a great bath into which a husband will plunge wildly, renouncing as he dives wives and children, all anchors and securities of hearth and roof, and from which he again emerges singularly refreshed and capable of being interested by a wife, a family, and a home until the next morning. To many women this is a grievance amounting often to an affront, and although they endeavor, even by cooking, to heal the singular breach, they are utterly unable to do so, and perpetually seek the counsel of each other on the subject. Mrs. Cafferty had merely asked her husband would he hold the baby while she poured out his stirabout, and he had incredibly threatened to pour the stirabout down the back of her neck if she didn't leave him alone.