n the consideration heretofore
accorded me, there was that in the lonely desolation of my condition
which awakened all their sympathies, and directed all their interests
towards me; and in no country are the differences of rank such slight
barriers in excluding the feeling of one portion of the community from
the sorrows of the others: the Irish peasant, however humble, seems
to possess an intuitive tact on this subject, and to minister all
the consolations in his power with a gentle delicacy that cannot be
surpassed.

The silence caused by my appearing among them was unbroken for some time
after I took my seat by the fire; and the only sounds were the
clinking of a spoon against the glass, or, the deep-drawn sigh of some
compassionate soul, as she wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye
with her apron.

Darby alone manifested a little impatience at the sudden change in a
party where his powers of agreeability had so lately been successful,
and fidgeted on his chair, unscrewed his pipes, blew into them, screwed
them on again, and then slyly nodded over to the housemaid, as he raised
his glass to his lips.

"Never mind me," said I to the old cook, who, between grief and the
glare of a turf fire, had her face swelled out to twice its natural
size,--"never mind me, Molly, or I 'll go away."

"And why would you, darlin'? Troth, no! sure there 's nobody feels for
you like them that was always about you. Take a cup of tay, alannah; it
'll do you good."

"Yes, Master Tom," said the butler; "you never tasted anything since
Tuesday night."

"Do, sir, av ye plaze!" said the pretty housemaid, as she stood before
me, cup in hand.

"Arrah! what's tay?" said Darby, in a contemptuous tone of voice. "A
few dirty laves, with a drop of water on top of them, that has neither
beatification nor invigoration. Here 's the _fons animi_!" said he,
patting the whisky bottle affectionately. "Did ye ever hear of the
ancients indulging in tay? D'ye think Polyphamus and Jupither took tay?"

The cook looked down abashed and ashamed.

"Tay's good enough for women,--no offence, Mrs. Cook!--but you might
boil down Paykin, and it'd never be potteen. _Ex quo vis ligno non fit
Mercurius_,--'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' That's
the meaning of it; ligno 's a sow."

Heaven knows I was in no mirthful mood at that moment; but I burst into
a fit of laughing at this, in which, from a sense of politeness, the
party all joined