hat are you howling for, you old goose?" shouted Nannie.

"It's the cow!" screamed Bridget. "Take her off! Oh, howly Mither! I'm
kilt entirely."

"The cow is half a mile from you!" laughed Nannie. "She didn't even
look toward you."

"Shure I felt her horns go into me back, an' as the saints live in
glory, I see thim come out at me brist."

"Well, I wish I could see you come out at the cow-yard with that milk
pail."

Bridget picked up her pieces, put herself together, and
discontentedly ambled toward the cow-yard, averring that in spite of
all Nannie might say, she knew she had a hole an inch wide in her left
lung; she could feel the wind whistle through it.

"There's nothing the matter with your lungs," said Nannie, "as all the
neighborhood knows by this time."

With a long, solemn countenance and a tear in each eye, Bridget
approached Sarah Maria, who was breakfasting in a hasty, unhygienic
manner.

"It's me life I take in me hand," murmured Bridget.

"Drop your life and take your pail instead, or are you going to milk
into your apron?" said Nannie imperiously.

"Oh, me pail! Shure the head of me is turned intirely, bad cess to
that cow! or I believe there's a hole through it, loike there is in me
lung."

"Your head turned!" said Nannie scornfully. "I should say it
was--turned inside out and emptied entirely."

But Bridget was wooing Mrs. Maria now.

"Aisy, now! Aisy, I say!" she muttered as she cautiously lowered
herself onto the milking stool.

But by some mysterious law of opposites, as she went down the pail
went up. Sarah Maria never ceased munching for a moment, but Nannie,
who was fixedly regarding her and trying to calculate how much longer
her breakfast would last, heard the crash, and looking around saw the
pail on its way upward.

"Now may the saints forgive me if I imperil me life anny longer!"
cried Bridget from a safe distance.

"And may Sarah Maria forgive you for sitting down on the wrong side of
her, you old goose!" screamed Nannie in her rude way.

"Howly Mither defind us! Did I do that now? Shure the twinty cows I
milked in ould Oireland preferred that side, an' they were very
particular about it, ivery last wan of thim."

"Now, don't crawl along that way," said Nannie impatiently as Bridget
crept up to her, "and take hold as if you weren't afraid."

"Shure if I had a shillalah wid a sucker on the ind of it, it's milk
her I wud, widout anny loss of me color, though she thrit