Miss Goold, to whom the quarrel was referred, pleaded the damsel's cause, and suggested privately that not even a policeman--she had a low opinion of the force--could be swept away from the path of respectability by a passion for so ugly a girl.

Mrs.Ginty pointed out in reply that red hair and freckles were no safeguard when a flirtation is carried on after dark.

There seemed no answer to this, and the maid returned indignantly to Ballymena.

She was succeeded by an anaemic and wholly incompetent niece of Mrs.Ginty's, who lived in such terror of her aunt that peace settled upon the household.

Miss Goold suspected that this girl did little or no work--was, in fact, wholly unfit for her position; but so long as she herself was made comfortable, it did not seem to matter who tidied away her clothes or dusted her bedroom.
Miss Goold, in fact, had so far mastered the philosophy of life as to understand that the only real use of money is to purchase comfort and freedom from minor worries.