To Bethel Solomons, M.B....

Mary Makebelieve lived with her mother in a small room at the very top of a big, dingy house in a Dublin back street. As long as she could remember she had lived in that top back room. She knew every ...

Every morning about six o’clock Mary Makebelieve left her bed and lit the fire. It was an ugly fire to light, because the chimney had never been swept, and there was no draught. Also, they never had a...

Her mother spoke sometimes of matrimony as a thing remote but very certain: the remoteness of this adventure rather shocked Mary Makebelieve; she knew that a girl had to get married, that a strange, b...

Every afternoon a troop of policemen marched in solemn and majestic single file from the College Green Police Station. At regular intervals, one by one, a policeman stepped sideways from the file, adj...

This is the appearance was on Mary Makebelieve at that time:⁠—She had fair hair, and it was very soft and very thick; when she unwound this it fell, or rather flowed, down to her waist, and when she w...

Although Mary Makebelieve was sixteen years of age she had not yet gone to work; her mother did not like the idea of her little girl stooping to the drudgery of the only employment she could have aide...

One morning Mary Makebelieve jumped out of bed and lit the fire. For a wonder it lit easily: the match was scarcely applied when the flames were leaping up the black chimney, and this made her feel at...

After her mother had gone, Mary Makebelieve occupied herself settling the room and performing the various offices which the keeping in order of even one small room involves. There were pieces of the w...

She walked along for some time in the Park. Through the railings flanking the great road many beds of flowers could be seen. These were laid out in a great variety of forms, of stars and squares and c...

The policeman told her wonderful things. He informed her why the Phoenix Park was called the Phoenix Park. He did not believe there was a phoenix in the Zoological Gardens, although they probably had ...

When Mrs. Makebelieve came home that night she seemed very tired, and complained that her work at Mrs. O’Connor’s house was arduous beyond any which she had yet engaged in. She enumerated the many roo...

Mrs. Makebelieve felt much better the next morning after the extra sleep which she had. She still confessed to a slight pain in her scalp when she brushed her hair, and was a little languid, but not s...

After that day Mary Makebelieve met her new friend frequently. Somehow, wherever she went, he was not far away; he seemed to spring out of space⁠—one moment she was alone watching the people passing a...

One night when Mrs. Makebelieve came home she was very low-spirited indeed. She complained once more of a headache and of a languor which she could not account for. She said it gave her all the troubl...

Next morning her mother was no better. She made no attempt to get out of bed, and listened with absolute indifference when the morning feet of the next-door man pounded the stairs. Mary awakened her a...

Her mother did not get better. Indeed, she got worse. In addition to the lassitude of which she had complained, she suffered also from great heat and great cold, and, furthermore, sharp pains darted s...

Early on the following morning Mary Makebelieve awakened with a start. She felt as if someone had called her, and lay for a few moments to see had her mother spoken. But her mother was still asleep. H...

It was a dark house. The windows were all withered away behind stiff curtains, and the light that laboured between these was chastened to the last degree of respectability. The doors skulked behind he...

The name of the woman from next door was Mrs. Cafferty. She was big and round, and when she walked her dress whirled about her like a tempest. She seemed to be always turning round; when she was going...

Mary had lavished the entire of her first day’s wages on delicate foods wherewith to tempt her mother’s languid appetite, and when the morning dawned she arose silently, lit the fire, wet the tea, and...

In a few minutes Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as every woman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands; for in the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures withou...

Mrs. Cafferty suggested that she and Mary should go out together to purchase that day’s dinner, and by the time she had draped her shoulders in a shawl, buried her head in a bonnet, cautioned all her ...

Mrs. Makebelieve was planning to get back such of her furniture and effects as had been pawned during her illness. Some of these things she had carried away from her father’s house many years before w...

In a little city like Dublin one meets every person whom one knows within a few days. Around each bend in the road there is a friend, an enemy, or a bore striding towards you, so that, with a piety wh...

Mrs. Cafferty came in that evening for a chat with Mrs. Makebelieve. There were traces of worry on the lady’s face, and she hushed the children who trooped in her wake with less of good humour than th...

Mrs. Cafferty’s lodger duly arrived. He was young and as thin as a lath, and he moved with fury. He was seldom in the place at all: he fled into the house for his food, and having eaten it, he fled aw...

It was not long until Mary and Mrs. Cafferty’s lodger met. As he came in by the hall door one day Mary was carrying upstairs a large water-bucket, the portage of which two or three times a day is so h...

When the sexual instinct is aroused, men and dogs and frogs and beetles, and such other creatures as are inside or outside of this catalogue, are very tenacious in the pursuit of their ambition. We ca...

Indeed, Mrs. Cafferty’s lodger and Mary had become quite intimate, and it was not through the machinations of either that this had happened. Ever since Mrs. Makebelieve had heard of that young man’s a...

Mrs. Makebelieve was astonished when the policeman knocked at her door. A knock at her door was a rare sound, for many years had gone by since anyone had come to visit her. Of late Mrs. Cafferty often...

When the young man who lodged with Mrs. Cafferty came in on the following day he presented a deplorable appearance. His clothes were torn and his face had several large strips of sticking-plaster on i...

If the unexpected did not often happen life would be a logical, scientific progression which might become dispirited and repudiate its goal for very boredom, but nature has cunningly diversified the m...