hands on Saturday evening."

"Oh, what a useful animal! What a husband you'll make, when you're a
little more improved!"

"Shan't I? As you're so fond of accomplishments, perhaps you'll take me
yourself by-and-by?"

"Why, as you're so useful, maybe I may."

"Well, Lambert," said Lord Ballindine, across the table, to the stingy
gentleman with the squint, "are you going to ride hard to-day?"

"I'll go bail I'm not much behind, my lord," said Lambert; "if the dogs
go, I'll follow."

"I'll bet you a crown, Lambert," said his cousin, young Brown of Mount
Brown, "the dogs kill, and you don't see them do it."

"Oh, that may be, and yet I mayn't be much behind."

"I'll bet you're not in the next field to them."

"Maybe you'll not be within ten fields yourself."

"Come, Lambert, I'll tell you what--we'll ride together, and I'll bet
you a crown I pound you before you're over three leaps."

"Ah, now, take it easy with yourself," said Lambert; "there are others
ride better than you."

"But no one better than yourself; is that it, eh?"

"Well, Jerry, how do the new articles fit?" said Nicholas Dillon.

"Pretty well, thank you: they'd be a deal more comfortable though, if
you'd pay for them."

"Did you hear, Miss O'Kelly, what Jerry Blake did yesterday?" said
Nicholas Dillon aloud, across the table.

"Indeed, I did not," said Guss--"but I hope, for the sake of the Blakes
in general, he didn't do anything much amiss?"

"I'll tell you then," continued Nicholas. "A portion of his ould
hunting-dress--I'll not specify what, you know--but a portion, which
he'd been wearing since the last election, were too shabby to show:
well, he couldn't catch a hedge tailor far or near, only poor lame Andy
Oulahan, who was burying his wife, rest her sowl, the very moment Jerry
got a howld of him. Well, Jerry was wild that the tailors were so
scarce, so he laid his hands on Andy, dragged him away from the corpse
and all the illigant enthertainment of the funeral, and never let him
out of sight till he'd put on the last button."

"Oh, Mr Blake!" said Guss, "you did not take the man away from his dead
wife?"

"Indeed I did not, Miss O'Kelly: Andy'd no such good chance; his wife's
to the fore this day, worse luck for him. It was only his mother he was
burying."

"But you didn't take him away from his mother's funeral?"

"Oh, I did it according to law, you know. I got Bingham to give me a
warrant first, before I let the policeman