_As the curtain rises,_ Bill Carmody _is discovered fitting in a rocker by the stove, reading a newspaper and smoking a blackened clay pipe. He is a man of fifty, heavy-set and round-shouldered, with long muscular arms and swollen-veined, hairy hands. His face is bony and ponderous; his nose short and squat; his mouth large, thick-lipped and harsh; his complexion mottled--red, purple-streaked, and freckled; his hair, short and stubby with a bald spot on the crown. The expression of his small, blue eyes is one of selfish cunning. His voice is loud and hoarse. He wears a flannel shirt, open at the neck, criss-crossed by red braces; black, baggy trousers grey with dust; muddy brogues._ _His youngest daughter,_ Mary, _is sitting on a chair by the table, front, turning over the pages of a picture book. She is a delicate, dark-haired, blue-eyed, quiet little girl about eight years old._ CARMODY (_after watching the child's preoccupation for a moment, in a tone of half exasperated amusement_). Well, but you're the quiet one, surely! (_Mary looks up at him with a shy smile, her eyes still full of dreams._) Glory be to God, I'd not know a soul was alive in the room, barrin' myself. What is it you're at, Mary, that there's not a word out of you? MARY. I'm looking at the pictures. CARMODY. It's the dead spit and image of your sister Eileen you are, with your nose always in a book; and you're like your mother, too, God rest her soul. (_He crosses himself with pious unction and_ Mary _also does so._) It's Nora and Tom has the high spirits in them like their father; and Billy, too,--if he is a lazy, shiftless divil--has the fightin' Carmody blood like me. You're a Cullen like your mother's people. They always was dreamin' their lives out. (_He lights his pipe and shakes his head with ponderous gravity._) There's no good in too many books, I'll tell you. It's out rompin' and playin' with your brother and sister you ought to be at your age, not carin' a fig for books. (_With a glance at the clock._) Is that auld fool of a doctor stayin' the night? If he had his wits about him he'd know in a jiffy 'tis only a cold has taken Eileen, and give her the medicine. Run out in the hall, Mary, and see if you hear him. He may have sneaked away by the front door. MARY (_goes out into the hall, rear, and comes back_). He's upstairs. I heard him talking to Eileen. CARMODY. Close the door, ye little divil! There's a freezin' draught comin' in. (_She does so and comes back to her chair._ Carmody _continues with a sneer._) It's mad I am to be thinkin' he'd go without gettin' his money--the like of a doctor! (_Angrily._) Rogues and thieves they are, the lot of them, robbin' the poor like us! I've no use for their drugs at all. They only keep you sick to pay more visits. I'd not have sent for this bucko if Eileen didn't scare me by faintin'. MARY (_anxiously_). Is Eileen very sick, Papa?