d, that I'll be tellin' you some o' these days."

"I believe, Ellish, you dhrame about makin' money."

"Well, an' I might do worse; when I'm dhramin' about it, I'm doin' no
sin to any one. But, listen, you must keep the house to-morrow while I'm
at the market. Won't you, Pether?"

"An' who's to open the dhrain in the bottom below?"

"That can be done the day afther. Won't you, abouchal?"

"Ellish, you're a deludher, I tell you. Sweet words;--sowl, you'd
smooth a furze bush wid sweet words. How-an-ever, I will keep the house
to-morrow, till we see the great things you'll do wid your crockery."

Ellish's success was, to say the least of it, quite equal to, her
expectations. She was certainly an excellent wife, full of acuteness,
industry, and enterprise. Had Peter been married to a woman of a
disposition resembling his own, it is probable that he would have sunk
into indolence, filth, and poverty, these miseries might have soured
their tempers, and driven them into all the low excesses and crimes
attendant upon pauperism. Ellish, however, had sufficient spirit to act
upon Peter's natural indolence, so as to excite it to the proper pitch.
Her mode of operation was judiciously suited to his temper. Playfulness
and kindness were the instruments by which she managed him. She knew
that violence, or the assumption of authority, would cause a man who,
like him, was stern when provoked, to react, and meet her with an
assertion of his rights and authority not to be trifled with. This she
consequently avoided, not entirely from any train of reasoning on the
subject; but from that intuitive penetration which taught her to know
that the plan she had resorted to was best calculated to make him
subservient to her own purposes, without causing him to feel that he was
governed.

Indeed, every day brought out her natural cleverness more clearly. Her
intercourse with the world afforded her that facility of understanding
the tempers and dispositions of others, which can never be acquired
when it has not been bestowed as a natural gift. In her hands it was
a valuable one. By degrees her house improved in its appearance, both
inside and outside. From crockery she proceeded to herrings, then to
salt, in each of which she dealt with surprising success. There was,
too, such an air of bustle, activity, and good-humor about her that
people loved to deal with her. Her appearance was striking, if not
grotesque. She was tall and strong, walked