"_Careful_--is ut? _Careful!_ I'm that--hic careful, mum! You'll not find me equal--on Shtaten Island, mum. I'm--jist a-ristin' mesilf a bit. I'm that wore out wid--hic--shlavin' fer the loikes av yez. An' I'll do ut no longer!" Miss MacGrotty here relinquished her lax hold upon the saucepan which glissaded briskly to the floor, scattering blobs of brown sauce in every direction. "_Mary!_" repeated Mrs. Belknap, "you must be ill!" "Git out av me kitchen!" advised Miss MacGrotty trenchantly. "I'll not have the loikes av yez a-bossin' _me_! I'm a perfec' leddy, I am, an'--hic--I'll not put up wid yer lip no more, ner I won't put up wid hers neither--a-tellin' me I ain't honest, an' me on'y takin' me perquisites now an' thin in tay an' sugar an' the loike!" "I do believe you've been drinking!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap, a great light breaking in upon her mind. "Tell me, was it you who put those things in poor Jane's trunk?" "Indade, an' I'll not tak' a worrd av yer imperance!" retorted Miss MacGrotty, with drunken dignity. "I says to mesilf, 'I'll tak' down her high looks,' I says. An' I done ut!" Mrs. Belknap turned and fled--straight into the arms of her husband, who had just entered the house. In that safe refuge the little woman burst into tormented tears, while the infant clinging to her skirts lifted up his voice in sympathetic concert. "What in the world?" began the distracted husband and father. "Hold hard here! I've got oranges, Buster! and violets, Madge! Come, dear, brace up and tell a fellow what's up! Anybody sick or dead? Or what has happened?" Thus entreated Mrs. Belknap sobbed out an incoherent account of the untoward happenings of the day. Mr. Belknap whistled, after a safe masculine habit. "Well, you have had a day of it!" he exclaimed. "Jane convicted and evicted; Jack eloped (presumably) and Mary intoxicated! By Jove! I believe she's preparing to invade the front of the house. Here, dear, you take the boy and go in the other room, and I'll manage the hilarious lady." The rumble of a deep Irish voice and the slamming of furniture in the dining room presaged the dramatic advent of Miss MacGrotty, armed with a poker and a toasting fork. "I'll tak' down the high looks av her afore I'm done wid her!" she was declaiming. "Hello, Mary! What's the matter with you?" demanded Mr. Belknap in a loud and cheerful voice. At sight of her master, tall, broad and authoritative, Miss MacGrotty sank into a chair and began to weep hysterically. "Aw, sur!" she faltered, "may the saints in hiven bless your kind hearrt fur askin'! I've be'n that--hic--put upon this day, an' me a perfec' leddy, but that delicut an' ailin' I'm 'bliged to tak' a wee drap occasional to kape up me spirits loike! 'You've be'n drinkin'' she says. The imperance av her!" Mr. Belknap had grasped the lady firmly by the arm. "You need a little rest, Mary," he said sympathetically. "You must have been working too steadily. My wife's a hard mistress."