, with a bad heart and a worse
conscience--when you'll have nobody but hirelings near you--hirelings that
will be robbing you before your eyes, and not waiting till the breath
leaves you--when even the drop of drink to cool your lips--'

'Don't--don't go on that way, Miss Betty. I've a cold shivering down the
spine of my back this minute, and a sickness creeping all over me.'

'I'm glad of it. I'm glad that my words have power over your wicked old
nature--if it's not too late.'

'If it's miserable and wretched you wanted to make me, don't fret about
your want of success; though whether it all comes too late, I cannot tell
you.'

'We'll leave that to St. Joseph.'

'Do so! do so!' cried he eagerly, for he had a shrewd suspicion he would
have better chances of mercy at any hands than her own.

'As for Gorman, if I find that he has any notions about claiming an acre
of the property, I'll put it all into Chancery, and the suit will outlive
_him_; but if he owns he is entirely dependent on my bounty, I'll settle
the Barn and the land on him, and the deed shall be signed the day he
marries your daughter. People tell you that you can't take your money with
you into the next world, Mat Kearney, and a greater lie was never uttered.
Thanks to the laws of England, and the Court of Equity in particular, it's
the very thing you can do! Ay, and you can provide, besides, that everybody
but the people that had a right to it shall have a share. So I say to
Gorman O'Shea, beware what you are at, and don't go on repeating that
stupid falsehood about not carrying your debentures into the next world.'

'You are a wise woman, and you know life well,' said he solemnly.

'And if I am, it's nothing to sigh over, Mr. Kearney. One is grateful for
mercies, but does not groan over them like rheumatism or the lumbago.'

'Maybe I 'in a little out of spirits to-day.'

'I shouldn't wonder if you were. They tell me you sat over your wine, with
that tall man, last night, till nigh one o'clock, and it's not at your time
of life that you can do these sort of excesses with impunity; you had a
good constitution once, and there's not much left of it.'

'My patience, I'm grateful to see, has not quite deserted me.'

'I hope there's other of your virtues you can be more sure of,' said
she, rising, 'for if I was asked your worst failing, I'd say it was your
irritability.' And with a stern frown, as though to confirm the judicial
severity of her words,