Paddy Corcoran’s wife was for several years afflicted with a kind of complaint which nobody could properly understand. She was sick, and she was not sick; she was well, and she was not well; she was as ladies wish to be who love their lords, and she was not as such ladies wish to be. In fact, nobody could tell what the matter with her was. She had a gnawing at the heart which came heavily upon her husband; for, with the help of God, a keener appetite than the same gnawing amounted to could not be met with of a summer’s day. The poor woman was delicate beyond belief, and had no appetite at all, so she hadn’t, barring a little relish for a mutton-chop, or a “staik,” or a bit o’ mait, anyway; for sure, God help her! she hadn’t the laist inclination for the dhry pratie, or the dhrop o’ sour butthermilk along wid it, especially as she was so poorly: and indeed for a woman in her condition--for, sick as she was, poor Paddy always was made to believe her in _that_ condition--but God’s will be done! she didn’t care. A pratie an’ a grain o’ salt was as welcome to her--glory be to his name!--as the best roast an’ boiled that ever was dressed; an’ why not? There was one comfort: she wouldn’t be long wid him--long throublin’ him; it matthered little what she got; but sure she knew herself that from the gnawin’ at her heart, she could never do good widout the little bit o’ mait now and then; an’, sure, if her own husband begridged it to her, who else had she a betther right to expect it from? Well, as we said, she lay a bedridden invalid for long enough, trying doctors and quacks of all sorts, sexes, and sizes, and all without a farthing’s benefit, until at the long run poor Paddy was nearly brought to the last pass in striving to keep her in “the bit o’ mait.” The seventh year was now on the point of closing, when one harvest day, as she lay bemoaning her hard condition on her bed beyond the kitchen fire, a little weeshy woman, dressed in a neat red cloak, comes in, and, sitting down by the hearth, says, “Well, Kitty Corcoran, you’ve had a long lair of it there on the broad o’ yer back for seven years, an’ you’re jist as far from bein’ cured as ever.” “Mavrone, ay,” said the other; “in troth that’s what I was this minnit thinkin’ ov, and a sorrowful thought it is to me.” “It’s yer own fau’t, thin,” says the little woman; “an’ indeed for that matter, it’s yer fau’t that ever you wor there at all.” “Arra, how is that?” asked Kitty; “sure I wouldn’t be here if I could help it? Do you think it’s a comfort or a pleasure to me to be sick and bedridden?”