...Mrs. Murphy's mother was a pathetic old body, with the winning speech and manners of Ireland a generation ago. Patty found her the most remunerative member of the household, so far as interest went. She always liked to get her started with stories of her girlhood, when she had been a lady's maid in Lord Stirling's castle in County Clare, and young Tammas Flannigan came and carried her off to America to help make his fortune. Tammas was now a bent old man with rheumatism, but in his keen blue eyes and Irish smile, Gramma still saw the lad who had courted her.
"How's your husband this winter?" Patty asked, knowing that she was taking the shortest road to the old woman's heart.
She shook her head with a tremulous smile.
"I 'm not hearin' for four days. Tammas ain't livin' with us no more."