Page 224 - dubliners

care of myself.’
‘Well, you’re the comical girl, Molly,’ said Mrs. Conroy
frankly.
‘Beannacht libh,’ cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she
ran down the staircase.
Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression
on her face, while Mrs. Conroy leaned over the banisters to
listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was he the
cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in
ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly
down the staircase.
At the moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the sup-
per-room, almost wringing her hands in despair.
‘Where is Gabriel?’ she cried. ‘Where on earth is Gabriel?
There’s everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody
to carve the goose!’
‘Here I am, Aunt Kate!’ cried Gabriel, with sudden ani-
mation, ‘ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary.’
A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the
other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of
parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and pep-
pered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its
shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between
these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two lit-
tle minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of
blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped
dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of
purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on
which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard

224 Dubliners