she exclaimed, with an eye which turned
on him with cool defiance; "pick that out o' your larnin', Bat, my pet.
You can all keep your saicrets; an' I'll let you know that I can keep
mine."

"Be the Holy St. Lucifer," said her husband, "if I wanst thought that
traichery 'ud enter your head, I'd take good care that it's in hell
you'd waken some fine mornin' afore long. So mind yourself, Kate, my
honey."

"Are you in nobody else's power but mine?" she replied, "ax yourselves
that--an' now do you mind yourself, Bat, my pet, and all o' yez."

"What is the raison," asked her husband, "that I see you an' Nanny Peety
colloguin' an' huggermuggerin' so often together of late?"

"Ah," she replied, with a toss of disdain, "what a manly fellow you are
to want to get into women's saicrets! you may save your breath though."

"Whatever you collogue about, all I say is, that I don't like a bone in
the same Nanny Peety's body. She has an eye in her head that looks as if
it knew one's thoughts."

"An' maybe it does. One thing I know, and every one knows it, that it's
a very purty eye."

"Tell her, then, to keep out o' this; we want no spies here."

"Divil a word of it; she's my niece, an' the king's highway is as free
to her as it is to you or anybody else. She'll be welcome to me any time
she comes, an' let me see who'll dare to mislist her. She feels as she
ought to do, an' as every woman ought to do, ay, an' every man, too,
that is a man, or anything but a brute an' a coward--she feels for that
unfortunate, heart-broken girl 'ithout;' an' it'll be a strange thing
if them that brought her to what she's sufferin' won't suffer
themselves yet; there's a God above still, I hope, glory be to His name!
Traichery!" she exclaimed; "ah, you ill-minded villains, it's yourselves
you're thinkin' of, an' what you desarve. As for myself, it's neither
you nor your villainy that's in my head, but the sorrowful heart that's
in that poor girl 'ithout--ay, an' a broken one; for, indeed, broked it
is; and it's not long she'll be troub'lin' either friend or foe in this
world. The curse o' glory upon you all, you villains, and upon every one
that had a hand in bringing her to this!"

Having uttered these words, she put her cloak and bonnet upon her, and
left the house, adding as she went out, "if it's any pleasure to you to
know it, I'll tell you. I'm goin' to meet Nancy Peety this minute,
an' you never seen sich colloguin' an' hugger-muggerin' as