What made it worse was that one day, sorely against Tim's will, my father ordered him to get ready for the sea, leaving me, who would have given my eyes for the chance, not only disappointed, but brotherless and alone in the world.
But I must tell you how this great change in our fortunes came to pass.
It was about a year after my mother's death when, one dark night, as father and we two sat round the peat fire in the cabin, father telling us queer stories about the Frenchmen, and icebergs in the Atlantic, and races with the king's cruisers, that the door opened suddenly, and a woman I had never seen before looked in.
"Biddy McQuilkin, as I'm a sinner!" said my father, taking the pipe from his lips, and looking, I thought, not altogether pleased.

But he got up, as a gentleman should.
"Arrah, Mike, you may well wonder! I hardly know myself at all, at all.
And there's the boys.

My! but it's myself's glad to see the pretty darlints." And she gave us each a hug and a kiss.
Somehow or other I did not at first take kindly to Biddy McQuilkin.

She was a stout woman of about mother's age, with little twinkling eyes that seemed to look not quite straight, and gave her face, otherwise comely enough, rather a sly expression.

And I guessed when she made so much of us that it was perhaps less on our account than on my father's.
As for father, I think he felt pretty much as I did, and had not the cunning to conceal it.
"I thought you were in Paris, Biddy ?" said he.
"So I was, and so, maybe, I'll be again," said the widow, taking her shawl from her head, and seating herself on a stool at the fire.