wiped it--but this not seeming to satisfy him, he then closed
both, and blew his nose with a little skeleton mealy handkerchief that
lay on a sack beside him for that purpose.

"Hem--a-hem! why, thin, Mrs. Dalton, it isn't to my poor place I
expected you would come."

"Darby," she replied, "there is no use for any length of conversation
between you and me--I'm here contrary to the wishes of my family--but I
am a mother, and cannot look upon their destitution without feeling
that I should not allow my pride to stand between them and death: we are
starving, I mean--they are; and I'm come to ask you for credit; if we
are ever able to pay you, we will; if not, it's only one good act done
to a family that often did many to you when they thought you grateful."

"I'm the worst in the world--I'm the worst in the world," replied
Skinadre; "but it wasn't till I knew that you'd be put out o' your farm
that I offered for it, and now you've taken away my carrecther, an'
spoken ill o' me everywhere, an' said that I bid for it over your heads;
ay, indeed, an' that it was your husband that set me up, by the way--oh,
yes--an' supposin' it was, an' I'm not denyin' it, but is that any
raisin that I'd not bid for a good farm, when I knew that yez 'ud be put
out of it?"

"I am now spakin' about the distress of our family," said Mrs. Dalton,
"you know that sickness has been among us, and is among us--poor Tom is
just able to be up, but that's all."

"Troth, an' it 'ud be well for you all, an' for himself too, that he had
been taken away afore he comes in a bad end. What he will come too, if
God hasn't said it. I hope he feels the affliction he brought on
poor Ned Munay an' his family by the hand he made of his unfortunate
daughter."

"He does feel it. The death of her brother and their situation has
touched his heart, an' he's only waitin' for better health and better
times to do her justice; but now what answer do you give me?"

"Why, this: I'm harrished by what I've done for every one; an'--an'--the
short and the long of it is, that I've naither male nor money to throw
away. I couldn't afford it and I can't. I'm a rogue, Mrs. Dalton--a
miser, an extortioner, an ungrateful knave, and everything that is bad
an' worse than another; an' for that raison, I say, I have naither male
nor money to throw away. That's what I'd say if I was angry; but I'm not
angry. I do feel for you an' them; still I can't afford to do what you
want, or I'd d