Gender Readings. Top Ten. Ренц Т.Г - 86 стр.

The Bohemian Girl and she felt excited as she sat in an unaccustomed
part of the theatre with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a
little. People knew that they were courting, and, when he sang about
the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused. First of all
it had been an excitement for her to have a fellow and then she had
begun to like him. He told tales of distant countries. He had started as a
deck bîó at apound amonth on ashi p of the Allan Line going out to
Canada. He told her the names of the shi ps he had been on and the
names of the different services. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos
Ayres he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday.
Of course, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her
to have anything to say to him. “I know these sailor chaps,” he said.
One day he had quarreled with Frank, and after that she had to meet
her lover secretly.
       The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in
her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry, the other was to her
father. Ernest had been her favourite, but she liked Harry too. Her
father was becoming old lately, she noticed;
       he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long
before, when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a
ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when
their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of
Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mother’s hat to
make the children laugh.
       Her time was running out, but she continued to sit by the win-
dow, leaning her head against the window curtain, inhaling the odour
of dusty cotton cloth. Down in the avenue she could hear a street organ
playing. She knew the tune. Strange that it should come that very night
to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the
home together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of
her mother’s illness; she was again in the close, dark room at the other
side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy tune of Italy. The
organ-player had been ordered to go away and been given sixpence. She
remembered her father walking back into the sick-room saying:
       “Damned Italians! Coming over here!”
       As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother’s life laid its spell
on her very soul — that life of common-place sacrifices ending in
final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother’s voice
saying constantly with foolish insistence:

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