he scarcely ventured
to contemplate the attitude likely to be assumed by his
housekeeper--of whom he stood in some little awe--if the question were
mooted of adding this piece of furniture to her well-polished and
carefully-dusted stock.

Wishing to change the subject, he remarked that Mary's beautiful cup
of tea had been scarcely tasted. "Why, I thought every drop was
precious," he added, laughing; "but I suppose you will not be counting
the grains now as you used to do."

"I don't seem to fancy it this mornin' the way I used to do
sometimes," responded Mrs. Brophy plaintively.

"Ah," said the priest, half-sadly, "you will have plenty of everything
over there, Mary, but I doubt if you will relish anything as much as
what you and Dan used to buy out of the price of your chickens.
Nothing is so sweet as what we earn for ourselves, woman dear. I fancy
the potatoes grown in your little bit of ground, and boiled in your
own black pot, taste sweeter, somehow, than all the fine dinners that
Mrs. Larry will be giving you."

"Thrue for ye, yer reverence," put in Dan, suddenly appearing in the
doorway. "'Pon me word, I wish that ould letther an' all that was in
it had stopped where it was, before it came upsettin' us that way. I'd
sooner stop where I am, so I would--I would so--there now ye have it!"
turning defiantly to his wife. "Sure it'll be the death of the two of
us lavin' the ould place, an' thravellin' off across the say among
strangers. An' what good will it do us, as I do be sayin' to herself
here, for Larry to be puttin' up a monyement for us over beyant there,
where there's ne'er a one at all that knows us?"

"To be sure, I was forgetting the monument," said Father Taylor,
laughing again. "I was to have the choosing of it, too, wasn't I? Let
me look at the letter again, Mary. Yes, here it is. 'The reverend
gentleman, whoever he is, that's parish priest in Clonkeen now'--It's
the very same reverend gentleman that used to give Master Larry many a
good box on the ear long ago when he was a little rascally lad; but I
suppose he thought I was dead and buried by this time--he wants to
have us all underground. Well, well, it's a pity I'm not to have the
choosing of that monument--I'd have picked out the finest that money
could buy."

He intended this as a joke, and Dan and Mary uttered a somewhat
melancholy, but complimentary laugh; then they looked at each other
wistfully, as though regretting that they were not i