y a time has she surveyed
the scene about her with an eye in which something like conscious pride
might be seen to kindle. On those occasions she usually shook her head,
and exclaimed, either in soliloquy, or by way of dialogue, to some
person near her:--

"Well, avourneen, all's very right, an' goin' an bravely; but I only
hope that when I'm gone I won't be missed!"

"Missed," Peter would reply, if he happened to hear her; "oh, upon my
credit"--he was a man of too much consequence to swear "by this and
by that" now--"upon my credit, Ellish, if you die soon, you'll see the
genteel wife I'll have in your place."

"Whisht, avourneen! Although you're but jokin', I don't like to hear it,
avillish! No, indeed; we wor too long together, Pether, and lived too
happily wid one another, for you to have the heart to think of sich a
thing!"

"No, in troth, Ellish, I would be long sarry to do it. It's displasin'
to you, achree, an' I won't say it. God spare you to us! It was you put
the bone in us, an' that's what all the country says, big an' little,
young and ould; an' God He knows it's truth, and nothin' else."

"Indeed, no, thin, Pether, it's not altogether thruth, you desarve your
full share of it. You backed me well, acushla, in everything, an' if you
had been a dhrinkin', idle, rollikin' vagabone, what 'ud signify all,
that me or the likes o' me could do."

"Faith, an' it was you made me what I am, Ellish; you tuck the soft
side o' me, you beauty; an' it's well you did, for by this--hem, upon
my reputation, if you had gone to cross purposes with me you'd find
yourself in the wrong box. An', you phanix of beauty, you managed the
childhre, the crathurs, the same way--an' a good way it is, in throth."

"Pether, wor you ever thinkin' o' Father Muloahy's sweetness to us of
late?"

"No, thin, the sorra one o' me thought of it. Why, Ellish?"

"Didn't you obsarve that for the last three or four months he's full of
attintions to us? Every Sunday he brings you up, an' me, if I'd go, to
the althar,--an' keeps you there by way of showin' you respect. Pether,
it's not you, but your money he respects; an' I think there ought to be
no respect o' persons in the chapel, any how. You're not a bit nearer
God by bein' near the althar; for how do we know but the poorest crathur
there is nearer to heaven than we are!"

"Faith, sure enough, Ellish; but what deep skame are you penethratin'
now, you desaver?"

"I'd lay my life, you'll h