nceit of all, Mrs. Twomey of the
dairy.

"Master Larry's coming home from Cluhir tomorrow, Mary," Miss
Coppinger announced, with satisfaction, to the peculiar confection of
grey hair and black chenille net that represented the back of Mrs.
Twomey's head, her forehead being pressed against the side of the cow
that she was milking.

"Thang-aade!" replied Mrs. Twomey fervently, expressing in this
concise form her gratitude to her Creator for what she considered to
be Larry's release from a very vile durance "He's long enough in it
already!"

"The Doctor wouldn't let me move him any sooner," replied Miss
Coppinger, apologetically.

"The divil doubt him, what a fool he'd be!" said Mrs. Twomey with a
bitter laugh. "Aren't they all sayin' as sure as gun is iron it's what
he wants that he'll see his daughter in Coppinger's Court before he
dies!"

"What nonsense!" said Miss Coppinger, warmly; "I should like to know
who is saying it!"

Mrs. Twomey, milking ceaselessly, slewed her head a little and looked
at her employer out of the corner of an eye as bright and as cunning
as a hen's, and said: "As rich as your Honour is, you couldn't put a
penny into the mouth of every man that's sayin' it!"

"I'm surprised at you, Mary," said Frederica, indignantly, "You ought
to have more sense than to repeat such rubbish!"

To this reproach, Mrs. Twomey responded with a long and jubilant crow
of laughter.

"Yerra, gerr'l alive--!" she corrected herself quickly. "My lady
alive, I should say--sure a little thing like me'd tell lies as fast
as a hen'd pick peas!"

The modesty, as well as the accuracy, of this statement silenced Miss
Coppinger for a moment.

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she resumed with much
severity. "It is amazing to me how a decent, respectable little woman
like you can not only tell lies, but boast of it!"

"Ah ha! I'm the same owld three and fourpince, an' will be till I
die!" triumphed Mrs. Twomey, with another screech of laughter,
removing her tiny person, her milk-pail, and her stool from under the
cow. "An' I won't be long dyin'!" another screech; "an' it won't take
many to carry me to Cunnock-a-Ceoil Churchyard!"

A final and prolonged burst of mirth succeeded this announcement,
during which the unrepentant Three and Fourpence swung the pail on to
the hook of the swinging-balance for weighing the milk that was Miss
Coppinger's latest and most detested innovation.

"Look at that now wha