own mother's cousin was married till the brother of me father's uncle,
an' niver a fut of me will go beyant the dure of that scut, Paulina."
And Mrs. Fitzpatrick, resting her hands upon her hips, stood the living
embodiment of hostility to any suggested compromise with sin.

But while determined to maintain at all costs this attitude
toward Paulina and her doings, her warm-hearted interest in
Anka's wedding made her very ready with offers of assistance
in preparing for the feast.

"It's not much I know about y're Polak atin'," she said,
"but I can make a batch of pork pies that wud tempt the
heart of the Howly Moses himsilf, an' I can give ye a bilin'
of pitaties that Timothy can fetch to the house for ye."

This generous offer Anka gladly accepted, for Mrs. Fitzpatrick's
pork pies, she knew from experience, were such as might indeed have
tempted so respectable a patriarch as Moses himself to mortal sin.
The "bilin' of pitaties," which Anka knew would be prepared in no
ordinary pot, but in Mrs. Fitzpatrick's ample wash boiler, was none
the less acceptable, for Anka could easily imagine how effective
such a contribution would be in the early stages of the feast in
dulling the keen edge of the Galician appetite.

The preparation for the wedding feast, which might be prolonged
for the greater part of three days, was in itself an undertaking
requiring careful planning and no small degree of executive ability;
for the popularity of both bride and groom would be sufficient to
insure the presence of the whole colony, but especially the reputed
wealth of the bride, who, it was well known, had been saving with