Read "Interference, Volume I" by B. M. Croker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"‘Will you walk into my parlour? ' / Said the spider to the fly. "
Her eldest son's generous cheque had lifted a heavy load of care from Mrs. Malone's bowed shoulders. She had caulked and repaired her sinking credit, with various gratifying sums "on account," and although the Major bullied her out of one hundred pounds, and Denis blarneyed away twenty more, yet she contrived to pay the most pressing village bills and the servants' wages, and to purchase some much-needed garments for Cuckoo and herself. In a new bonnet and gown, she was a comparatively happy woman, when she carried her soldier son round to call on the neighbourhood -- on the Mahons of the Glen, the Lynches of Newton-Girly, the Moores of Roskeen, Miss Dopping and the Finnys. Mrs. Finny -- who was as much too sweet as her daughter was the reverse -- clasped her bony hands, ecstatically, in Mrs. Malone's face, as she welcomed her, and brought a tinge of red into George Holroyd's tanned cheek, by saying: "So _good_ of you, my dear, kind friend, to bring your handsome son to see us."