over again: and this time she got the prayer-book.

After that Mrs. Donnelly played Miss McCloud's Reel for the children
and Joe made Maria take a glass of wine. Soon they were all quite merry
again and Mrs. Donnelly said Maria would enter a convent before the year
was out because she had got the prayer-book. Maria had never seen Joe
so nice to her as he was that night, so full of pleasant talk and
reminiscences. She said they were all very good to her.

At last the children grew tired and sleepy and Joe asked Maria would she
not sing some little song before she went, one of the old songs. Mrs.
Donnelly said "Do, please, Maria!" and so Maria had to get up and stand
beside the piano. Mrs. Donnelly bade the children be quiet and listen
to Maria's song. Then she played the prelude and said "Now, Maria!" and
Maria, blushing very much began to sing in a tiny quavering voice. She
sang I Dreamt that I Dwelt, and when she came to the second verse she
sang again:

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride.

I had riches too great to count; could boast
Of a high ancestral name,
But I also dreamt, which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same.

But no one tried to show her her mistake; and when she had ended her
song Joe was very much moved. He said that there was no time like the
long ago and no music for him like poor old Balfe, whatever other people
might say; and his eyes filled up so much with tears that he could not
find what he was looking for and in the end he had to ask his wife to
tell him where the corkscrew was.

A PAINFUL CASE

MR. JAMES DUFFY lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as
possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found
all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived
in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the
disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin is
built. The lofty walls of his uncarpeted room were free from pictures.
He had himself bought every article of furniture in the room: a black
iron bedstead, an iron washstand, four cane chairs, a clothes-rack,
a coal-scuttle, a fender and irons and a square table on which lay a
double desk. A bookcase had been