end of the grave.
Sure he couldn't have a head for his office."

Such, however, as was our new house, my poor mother was glad to get it.
We had been located there two or three weeks, and my mother had now time
to give me some instruction in the arts of reading and writing. She was
thus engaged, leaning over the book placed on her lap by the side of
which I stood, when we were startled by a voice which said, "Top of the
morning to you, Mistress Burton."

We looked up, and there stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman,
in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather
breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in
his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand,
while he kept scraping with his feet, making his spurs jingle.

"Your servant, Mistress Burton. It is mighty touching to the heart to
see a mother engaged as you are, and faith I would not have missed the
sight for a thousand guineas, paid down on the nail. Ah! Mistress
Burton, it reminds me of days gone by, but I won't say I have no hopes
that they will ever return," and our visitor twisted his eyes about in
what I thought a very queer way, trying to look sentimental.

"To what cause do I owe this visit, Mr Gillooly?" asked my mother,
perhaps not altogether liking his looks, for I rather think his feelings
had been excited by a few sips of potheen. Her natural politeness,
however, induced her to rise and offer him a chair, into which, after a
few more scrapes and flourishes of the hat, he sank down, placing his
beaver and his whip upon it by his side.

"It is mightily you bring to my mind my dear departed Mistress
Gillooly," he exclaimed, looking very strangely I thought at my mother.
"She was the best of wives, and if she was alive she would be after
telling you that I was the best of husbands, but she has gone to glory,
and the only little pledge of our affection has gone after her; and so,
Mistress Burton, I am left a lone man in this troublesome world. And
sure, Mrs Burton, the same is your lot I am after thinking, but there
is an old saying, `Off with the old love and on with the new;' and, oh!
Mistress Burton, it would be a happy thing if that could come true
between two people I am thinking of."

My mother might have thought this very plain speaking, but she pretended
not to understand Mr Gillooly, and made no answer.

"Is it silence gives consent?" he exclaimed at last with