.

"That's it, acushla!" said the old cook, as her eyes sparkled with
delight; "sure it makes my heart light to see you smilin' again. Maybe
Darby would raise a tune now, and there 's nothing equal to it for the
spirits."

"Yes, Mr. M'Keown," said the housemaid; "play 'Kiss me twice!' Master
Tom likes it."

"Devil a doubt he does!" replied Darby, so maliciously as to make poor
Kitty blush a deep scarlet; "and no shame to him! But you see my fingers
is cut. Master Tom, and I can't perform the reduplicating intonations
with proper effect."

"How did that happen. Darby?" said the butler.

"Faix, easy enough. Tim Daly and myself was hunting a cat the other
evening, and she was under the dhresser, and we wor poking her with a
burnt stick and a raypinghook, and she somehow always escaped us, and
except about an inch of her tail, that we cut off, there was no getting
at her; and at last I hated a toastin'-fork and put it in, when out
she flew, teeth and claws, at me. Look, there 's where she stuck
her thieving nails into my thumb, and took the piece clean out. The
onnatural baste!"

"Arrah!" said the old cook, with a most reflective gravity, "there 's
nothing so treacherous as a cat! "--a moral to the story which I found
met general assent among the whole company.

"Nevertheless," observed Darby, with an air of ill-dissembled
condescension, "if it isn't umbrageous to your honor, I 'll intonate
something in the way of an ode or a canticle."

"One of your own. Darby," said the butler, interrupting.

"Well, I've no objection," replied Darby, with an affected modesty;
"for you see, master, like Homer, I accompany myself on the pipes,
though--glory be to God!--I'm not blind. The little thing I 'll give
you is imitated from the ancients--like Tibullus or Euthropeus--in the
natural key."

Mister M'Keown, after this announcement, pushed his empty tumbler
towards the butler with a significant glance gave a few preparatory
grunts with the pipes, followed by a long dolorous quaver, and then a
still more melancholy cadence, like the expiring bray of an asthmatic
jackass; all of which sounds, seeming to be the essential preliminaries
to any performance on the bagpipes, were listened to with great
attention by the company. At length, having assumed an imposing
attitude, he lifted up both elbows, tilted his little finger affectedly
up, dilated his cheeks, and began the following to the well-known air of
"Una:"--

MUSIC.