rst, you phanix, an' thin I'm your man!"

"Faix, take your own coorse, avourneen. If you get a lase of it at a
fair rint, I'll buy another horse, any how. Isn't that doin' the thing
dacent'?"

"More power to you, Ellish! I'll hold you a crown, I pay you the price
o' the horse afore this time twelvemonth."

"Done! The sarra be off me but done!--an' here's Barny Dillon an' Katty
Hacket to bear witness."

"Sure enough we will," said Barny, the servant.

"I'll back the misthress any money," replied the maid.

"Two to one on the masther," said the man. "Whoo! our side o' the house
for ever! Come, Pether, hould up your head, there's money bid for you!"

"Ellish, I'll fight for you ankle deep," said Katty--"depind your life
an me."

"In the name o' goodness, thin, it's a bargain," said Ellish; "an' at
the end o' the year, if we're spared, we'll see what we'll see. We'll
have among ourselves a little sup o' tay, plase goodness, an' we'll be
comfortable. Now, Barny, go an' draw home thim phaties from the pits
while the day's fine; and Katty, a colleen, bring in some wather, till
we get the pig killed and scalded--it'll hardly have time to be good
bacon for the big markets at Christmas. I don't wish," she continued,
"to keep it back from them that we have a thrifle o' money. One always
does betther when it's known that they're not strugglin'. There's Nelly
Cummins, an' her customers is lavin' her, an' dalin' wid me, bekase
she's goin' down in business. Ay an', Pether, ahagur, it's the way o'
the world."

"Well but, Ellish, don't you be givin' Nelly Cummins the harsh word, or
lanin' too heavily upon her, the crathur, merely in regard that she is
goin' down. Do you hear, acolleen?"

"Indeed I don't do it, Pether; but you know she has a tongue like a
razor at times, and whin it gets loose she'd provoke St. Pether himself.
Thin she's takin' to the dhrink, too, the poor misfortunate vagabone!"

"Well, well, that's no affair o' yours, or mine aither--only don't be
risin' ructions and norrations wid her. You _threwn_ a jug at her the
last day you war out, an' hot the poor ould Potticary as he was passin'.
You see I hard that, though you kept it close from me!--ha, ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha, ha!--why you'd split if you had seen the crathur whin he fell
into Pether White's brogue-creels, wid his heels up. But what right
had she to be sthrivin' to bring away my customers afore my face? Ailey
Dogherty was buying a crock wid me, and Ne