nd them; young voices were not
heard--laughing eyes turned not on their parents--the melody of angry
squabbles, as the urchins, in their parents' fancy, cuffed and scratched
each other--half, or wholly naked among the ashes in the morning,
soothed not the yearning hearts of Larry and his wife. No, no; there was
none of this.

Morning passed in a quietness hard to be borne: noon arrived, but the
dismal dreary sense of childlessness hung upon the house and their
hearts; night again returned, only to add its darkness to that which
overshadowed the sorrowful spirits of this disconsolate couple.

For the first two or three years, they bore this privation with a strong
confidence that it would not last. The heart, however, sometimes becomes
tired of hoping, or unable to bear the burthen of expectation, which
time only renders heavier. They first began to fret and pine, then to
murmur, and finally to recriminate.

Sheelah wished for children, "to have the crathurs to spake to," she
said, "and comfort us when we'd get ould an' helpless."

Larry cared not, provided they had a son to inherit the "half acre."
This was the burthen of his wishes, for in all their altercations, his
closing observation usually was--"well, but what's to become of the half
acre?"

"What's to become of the half acre? Arrah what do I care for the half
acre? It's not that you ought to be thinkin' of, but the dismal poor
house we have, wid not the laugh or schreech of a _single pastiah_ (*
child) in it from year's end to year's end."

"Well, Sheelah?--"

"Well, yourself, Larry? To the diouol I pitch your half acre, man."

"To the diouol you--pitch--What do you fly at me for?"

"Who's flyin' at you? They'd have little tow on their rock that 'ud fly
at you."

"You are flyin' at me; an' only you have a hard face, you wouldn't do
it."

"A hard face! Indeed it's well come over wid us, to be tould that by the
likes o' you! ha!"

"No matther for that! You had betther keep a soft tongue in your head,
an' a civil one, in the mane time. Why did the divil timpt you to take a
fancy to me at all?"

"That's it. Throw the _grah_ an' love I _once_ had for you in my teeth,
now. It's a manly thing for you to do, an' you may be proud, of it. Dear
knows, it would be betther for me I had fell in consate wid any face
but yours."

"I wish to goodness you had! I wouldn't be as I am to-day. There's that
half acre--"

"To the diouol, I say, I pitch yourself an'