With a long, solemn countenance and a tear in each eye, Bridget approached Sarah Maria, who was breakfasting in a hasty, unhygienic manner. "It's me life I take in me hand," murmured Bridget. "Drop your life and take your pail instead, or are you going to milk into your apron?" said Nannie imperiously. "Oh, me pail! Shure the head of me is turned intirely, bad cess to that cow! or I believe there's a hole through it, loike there is in me lung." "Your head turned!" said Nannie scornfully. "I should say it was--turned inside out and emptied entirely." But Bridget was wooing Mrs. Maria now. "Aisy, now! Aisy, I say!" she muttered as she cautiously lowered herself onto the milking stool. But by some mysterious law of opposites, as she went down the pail went up. Sarah Maria never ceased munching for a moment, but Nannie, who was fixedly regarding her and trying to calculate how much longer her breakfast would last, heard the crash, and looking around saw the pail on its way upward. "Now may the saints forgive me if I imperil me life anny longer!" cried Bridget from a safe distance. "And may Sarah Maria forgive you for sitting down on the wrong side of her, you old goose!" screamed Nannie in her rude way. "Howly Mither defind us! Did I do that now? Shure the twinty cows I milked in ould Oireland preferred that side, an' they were very particular about it, ivery last wan of thim." "Now, don't crawl along that way," said Nannie impatiently as Bridget crept up to her, "and take hold as if you weren't afraid." "Shure if I had a shillalah wid a sucker on the ind of it, it's milk her I wud, widout anny loss of me color, though she thritened me wid twinty horns an' as manny hind legs." "Oh, you've got several bees in your bonnet, that's what's the matter with you!" exclaimed Nannie. "Is it bees, ye say? Air they loose too?" screamed Bridget, jerking off her sunbonnet and tearing down her hair. "Is it bees as well as cows in me hid, an' ye standin' laffin loike ter kill yersilf at the very idee of me bein' murdered in cold blud!" By this time her hair was distraught and her face flaming with excitement and exertion, and altogether she so closely resembled some avenging spirit that even Sarah Maria began to tremble before her. As soon as Nannie could control herself she informed her that the terrifying words she used were merely a figure of speech. "Clothed or not clothed----" Nannie began, but Bridget burst forth: "An' I wuldn't hev belaved that anny young leddy wid a dacent raisin' wud use figgers of spache, widout clothes at that. It's Bridget O'Flannigan'll see if----" But here Nannie's screams of laughter interrupted her. "I believe you've a brick in your bonnet as well as a bee," she exclaimed. This time Bridget understood, and clapping her sunbonnet (upside down) onto her disrumpled head, she wabbled toward the house. This would never do, so Nannie ran and planted herself in front of her.