n His goodness to them had took me an' spared him,
they wouldn't be sendin' to you this day for meal to keep life in them
till things comes round."

"Troth I pity them--from my heart I pity them now they're helpless and
ould--especially for havin' sich a daughter as you are; but if it was
my own father an' mother, God rest them, I couldn't give meal out on
credit. There's not in the parish a poorer man than I am. I'm done wid
givin' credit now, thank goodness; an' if I had been so long ago, it
isn't robbed, and ruined, an' beggared by rogues I'd be this day, but a
warm, full man, able and willin' too to help my neighbors; an' it is not
empty handed I'd send away any messenger from your father or mother, as
I must do, although my heart bleeds for them this minute."

Here once more he wiped away the rheum, with every appearance of regret
and sorrow. In fact, one would almost suppose that by long practice he
had trained one of his eyes--for we ought to have said that there was
one of them more sympathetic than the other--to shed its hypocritical
tear at the right place, and in such a manner, too, that he might claim
all the credit of participating in the very distresses which he refused
to relieve, or by which he amassed his wealth.

The poor heart-broken looking girl, who by the way carried an
unfortunate baby in her arms, literally tottered out of the room,
sobbing bitterly, and with a look of misery and despair that it was
woeful to contemplate.

"Ah, then, Harry Hacket," said he, passing to another, "how are you?
an' how are you all over in Derrycloony, Harry? not forgettin' the ould
couple?"

"Throth, middlin' only, Darby. My fine boy, Denis, is down wid this
illness, an' I'm wantin' a barrel of meal from you till towards
Christmas."

"Come inside, Harry, to this little nest here, till I tell you
something; an', by the way, let your father know I've got a new prayer
that he'll like to learn, for it's he that's the pious man, an' attinds
to his duties--may God enable him! and every one that has the devotion
in the right place; _amin a Chiernah!_"

He then brought Hacket into a little out-shot behind the room in which
the scales were, and shutting the door, thus proceeded in a sweet,
confidential kind of whisper--

"You see, Harry, what I'm goin' to say to you is what I'd not say
to e'er another in the parish, the divil a one--God pardon me for
swearin'--_amin a Chiernah!_ I'm ruined all out--smashed down and