“No, Norah!” my husband replied; “it is useless to think that you and your mistress can ever live amicably together; and my mind is made up. So go down stairs quietly, like a good soul, and don’t let me hear anything more about it.” I’m sure I never witnessed in all my life such a scene as followed. I declare that Norah went on more like a mad thing than a Christian. At one moment, she was crying like a child, at another, she was raving like a maniac. Now she was all penitence, and the very next minute, her eyes were starting out of her head, and she was swearing to be revenged; and she had no sooner finished blessing us, in case we let her stop, than she would set to work and heap on our heads, if we sent her away, all kinds of the most dreadful curses one could think of, and which quite made my flesh crawl, I declare. But Edward was very stern, and wouldn’t give in in the least; so that at last, Norah, finding all her tears thrown away upon us, and that she was only wasting her breath by going on in the way she did, turned round, and swearing that we shouldn’t send her away, went down to the kitchen again. On going to the top of the stairs and listening, I could hear her muttering all kinds of dreadful things against me, though I’m sure _I_ hadn’t given her warning, and couldn’t see that _I_ had done so much towards her, after all. But the fact was, the creature I knew had had a spite against me ever since she set foot in the house. I went back into the parlour, and asked Edward just to come and listen how the woman was raving, but he is such a stupid, obstinate man, that he wouldn’t oblige me, and said that it was a meanness that any decent person would be ashamed of doing.