t we might suppose to have irradiated Eden, when our first
parents sat in it before their fall. The beams of the sun shone through
the windows in clear shafts of amber light, exhibiting millions of those
atoms which float to the naked eye within its mild radiance. The dog lay
barking in his dreams at her feet, and the gray cat sat purring placidly
upon his back, from which even his occasional agitation did not dislodge
her.

Mrs. Sullivan was the wife of a wealthy farmer, and niece to the Rev.
Felix O'Rourke; her kitchen was consequently large, comfortable, and
warm. Over where she sat, jutted out the "brace" well lined with bacon;
to the right hung a well-scoured salt-box, and to the left was the jamb,
with its little gothic paneless window to admit the light. Within it
hung several ash rungs, seasoning for flail-sooples, or boulteens, a
dozen of eel-skins, and several stripes of horse-skin, as hangings for
them. The dresser was a "parfit white," and well furnished with the
usual appurtenances. Over the door and on the "threshel," were nailed,
"for luck," two horse-shoes, that had been found by accident. In a
little "hole" in the wall, beneath the salt-box, lay a bottle of holy
water to keep the place purified; and against the cope-stone of the
gable, on the outside, grew a large lump of house-leek, as a specific
for sore eyes and other maladies.

In the corner of the garden were a few stalks of tansy "to kill the
thievin' worms in the childhre, the crathurs," together with a little
Rose-noble, Solomon's Seal, and Bu-gloss, each for some medicinal
purpose. The "lime wather" Mrs. Sullivan could make herself, and the
"bog bane" for the Unh roe, (* Literally, red water) or heart-burn, grew
in their own meadow drain; so that, in fact, she had within her reach a
very decent pharmacopoeia, perhaps as harmless as that of the profession
itself. Lying on the top of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and
sewed in the folds of her own scapular was the dust of what had once
been a four-leaved shamrock, an invaluable specific "for seein' the good
people," if they happened to come within the bounds of vision. Over the
door in the inside, over the beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses,
were placed branches of withered palm, that had been consecrated by the
priest on Palm Sunday; and when the cows happened to calve, this good
woman tied, with her own hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to
prevent them from being over