e corner
shelf and got down an old glass jar with scalloped edge and a flat tin
cover. It evidently contained jam. She lifted the cover and exclaimed:

"Well, Oi niver!" Then going to the door she fished out with her
fingers a dead mouse and threw it out, remarking placidly, "Oi've
wondered whayer the little divil wuz. Oi ain't sane him this two
wakes, an' me a-thinkin' it wuz Tom ate him. May Oi be furgiven the
onjustice av it. Consarn them flies! That cover niver did fit." And
again her finger was employed, this time to scrape off an incrustation
of unhappy flies that had died, like Clarence, in their favourite
beverage.

"Thayer, Yan, now ate hearty, all av it, an' welcome. It does me good
to see ye ate--thayer's lots more whayer that come from," though it
was obvious that she had put her all upon the table.

Poor Yan was in trouble. He felt instinctively that the good old soul
was wrecking her week's resources in this lavish hospitality, but he
also felt that she would be deeply hurt if he did not appear to enjoy
everything. The one possibly clean thing was the bread. He devoted
himself to that; it was of poorest quality; one or two hairs looping
in his teeth had been discouraging, but when he bit at a piece of
linen rag with a button on it he was fairly upset. He managed to hide
the rag, but could not conceal his sudden loss of appetite.

"Hev some more av this an' this," and in spite of himself his
plate was piled up with things for him to eat, including a lot of
beautifully boiled potatoes, but unfortunately the hostess carried
them from the pot on the stove in a corner of her ancient and somber
apron, and served him with her skinny paw.

Yan's appetite was wholly gone now, to the grief of his kind
entertainer, "Shure an' she'd fix him up something to stringthen him,"
and Yan had hard work to beg off.

"Would ye like an aig," ventured Biddy.

"Why, yes! oh, yes, please," exclaimed Yan, with almost too much
enthusiasm. He thought, "Well, hens are pure-minded creatures, anyway.
An egg's sure to be clean."

Biddy waddled away to the 'barrun' and soon reappeared with three
eggs.

"B'iled or fried?"

"Boiled," said Yan, aiming to keep to the safe side.

Biddy looked around for a pot.

"Shure, _that's_ b'ilin' now," said Granny, pointing to the great
mass of her undergarments seething in the boiler, and accordingly the
eggs were dropped in there.

Yan fervently prayed that they might not break. As it