THE SISTERS It was Norah Coveney, who has more queer stories than anyone in Cork, who told me this one, and I have tried to retell it, so far as I could, in her own words. Miss Kate and Miss Ellen—God rest them both, the creatures!—came to live in Blarney Lane, oh, long years ago now! but where they came from or who they were we didn’t know at . the time. Miss Kate opened a little shop, and for two years it flourished in her care alone. No one ever saw Miss Ellen, though we were always speaking of her, or if we weren’t Miss Kate was quick to remind us, for ’twas as if she had that poor sister of hers on the brain. ‘And how’s yourself?’ you’d ask by way of being neighbourly, and pat as tuppence she’d say, ‘Finely, thank God, I’m finely, but Miss Ellen isn’t herself at all these times,’ or, as might be, ‘Miss Ellen is very quiet in herself, thanks be to you, God!’ So it came about that her poor mad sister was as much in our minds as Miss Kate herself —-or more maybe—and we’d ask about her as you’d ask about one you’d known since you were a child growing up beside her. ’Twas how we understood it: there was this strain in the family, and Miss Kate being too proud to have her sister locked up on her, kept her and fed her and minded her, as any of us would like to do for our own. And when I say Miss Kate was proud I mean it, my dear! Though she’d talk to you at the counter as well as another, never would she invite you inside to have a cup of tea or a look at the house. Nor was she ever known to smile, but always discreet and managing; a near, tight, slim, shabby little woman with two hard lips, you’d see her off to do her shopping when the men were going to work, and on the stroke of ten she’d close her little shutters, and up the stairs with her to bed. Often and often when I passed and seen that light burning in the upstairs room I thought to myself, my dear, the life that poor woman must lead, trying to control her sister that was so often outrageous, as she gave you to understand. And that, as we all thought, excusing her sharpness and her being a little bit queer, was the greatest burden the Lord could lay on her. Well, one morning we seen the shutters up till noon and no sign of Miss Kate, but like that in the story none of us wanted to be first in, for though a neighbour’s a neighbour no one would care to intrude where she wasn’t wanted. But as evening drew near, and the house looked just as quiet as before, some of us made so bold as to knock, and there being no reply, one of the men forced the door for us. And when we stole in, my dear, there was Miss Kate, sitting all alone by the fireplace, fully dressed, but never to see the light again. It was a shock, I tell you, I never forgot! There wasn’t a hair astray on her to tell you what happened, and she as cold and waxy as a three—days’ corpse. We sent the men off, some to the priest and some to the police, and Bridgie Flynn crept upstairs on tiptoe to see what was there. Miss Kate’s door, as she explained it, was wide open, and what should she see on “the dresser, my dear, but a new blue shroud! As I said then, even death couldn’t take that poor creature by surprise. Well, a doctor came and told us—what we knew already—that she was dead overnight; a policeman—it was Bill Conboy, by the same token—came and wrote down our names and all we had to say about the deceased, and a message came saying the priest would drop in later to arrange about the funeral. Then Minnie came in, Minnie Mac, the market woman, and she clapped her two hands on her hips and asked us in the name of Almighty God what were we doing there all night and had we no respect for the dead. Within five minutes Minnie had the place cleared of men (including old Conboy), and with her own two hands she stripped the corpse and lifted it on the table to wash it. She sent me out to get my own two brass candlesticks and borrow two more, and by the time we left old Conboy in, she was after arranging a lovely wake. There on the table with her flowers and rosary beads and candles lay Miss Kate and the last wrinkle long faded from her poor old face. So we set to under Minnie’s orders and made a cup of tea for old Conboy who was to face upstairs before he was relieved, to see what could be done with the poor mad woman, and Minnie and himself started swapping yarns about all the queer deaths they had ever seen or heard of when suddenly—as true as God I nearly died— the door opened in on us, and there was the queerest little creature you ever seen, in a white nightdress with white hair sticking out all over her head. ‘Almighty and Merciful!’ whispers Bridgie Flynn to me, ‘'tis the mad sister!’ So there we sat stupefied, the lot of us, and the little creature without as much as pushing the door in one inch more, started making queer sounds, passing her tongue over her lips every now and again as if she was moistening them. And it was another minute or so before we could even make out what she was saying—oh, a weeshy, scared, cracked, little voice she had, like a sparrow. ' ‘Am I made welcome, neighbours?’ that was what she said. ‘Am I made welcome?’ Minnie Mac, as you’d expect, was the first to make a move, though God knows she looked frightened enough. She rose from her stool, pulling the old shawl tight about her shoulders. ‘What’s that you say, ma’am?’ she says politely, just as if she was looking for a fight. The little woman behind the door moistened her lips again and again. ‘Am I made welcome?’ she says at last, as if it was a trial to her to say it. Well, I noticed Minnie Mac looking at her in a queer sort of puzzled way, up and down and back again. Then she gave one yell out of her that was like a sergeant of the guard calling his men to order. I never before nor since heard such a ring in any woman’s voice, and the two eyes were standing in her head. ‘Move up there, women!’ she bawled. ‘Move. up, I tell ye! Come in, ma’am, come in!’ she says, grabbing the little woman by the two shoulders and flinging her own 'shawl around her. ‘Bridgie Flynn, hot up the kettle, hot it up this instant! The poor soul must be famished!’ So, begob, Minnie planked Miss Ellen down beside her at the fire, and pulled her feet up on the fender, and covered her round and round with the shawl, and by the way she talked you’d think ’twas a stray child of her own she had. And none of us said one word, but old Conboy pulled out! his big notebook, and then, catching a wink from Minnie, put it back again. At last, Bridgie Flynn, that great gom—I never forgave her for it—filled out the cup of tea and handed it to Miss Ellen. ‘Take the tay, poor woman,’ says she with her idioty smile. ‘You’ve no wan now to mind you but Almighty God!’ - At that minute Minnie’s eye caught her one melting, withering look that was as good as a summons. ‘Who do she want to mind her, you fool?’ said she, and there was a fright of bitterness in the way she said it. ‘Who do she want to mind her, will you tell me? Is it that poor creature on the table?’ I tell you there was a silence like the grave in that room for a full minute, an awful silence, and we looked at the corpse and back at Minnie, and at long last light began to dawn on us one by one. We were stupefied, that’s what we were, stupefied! And I remember as this day how we heard Shandon strike through the window, and how clear it sounded, and all at once the poor woman sitting at the fire began to sob her heart out, and Minnie said again and again ‘There, there, there, the creature!’ and pulling out an old comb began to run it through Miss Ellen’s white hair. ‘And is that all the story?’ I asked when Norah Coveney had finished. She was looking away from me, as though seeing it all again. ‘What more do you want?’ she asked roughly. ‘And it was the other woman — Miss Kate ?’ ‘Of course it was Miss Kate! Amn’t I telling you?’ ‘And what happened Miss Ellen after?’ ‘You might ask your mother that. Many’s the cup of tea herself and me and Minnie Mac drank in Miss Ellen’s back parlour.’ ‘And you never asked her how it all came about?’ "Tis the sort of thing you’d do yourself I suppose?’ asked Norah pertly. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t,’ I admitted unwillingly. ‘My oath on it you wouldn’t!’ said Norah with conviction.