' says she, 'I fear you have as difficult a task to-day as you
had yesterday.'

"'Why, and it's you that may say that with your own purty mouth,' says
Jack, says he; for out of breath and all as he was, he couldn't help
giving her a bit of blarney, the rogue.

"'Well, Jack,' says she, 'take my advice, and don't tire yourself any
longer by attempting to catch her; truth's, best--I tell you, you could
never do it; come home to your breakfast, and when you return again,
'just amuse yourself as well as you can until dinner-time.'

"'Och, och!' says Jack, striving to look, the sly thief, as if she had
promised to help him--'I only wish I was a king, and, by the powers,
I know who would be my queen, any how; for it's your own sweet
lady--savourneen dheelish--I say, amn't I bound to you for a year and
a day longer, for promising to give me a lift, as well as for what you
done yesterday?'

"'Take care, Jack,' says she, smiling, however, at his ingenuity in
striving to trap her into a promise, 'I don't think I made any promise
of assistance.'

"'You didn't,' says Jack, wiping his face with the skirt of his coat,
''cause why?--you see pocket-handkerchiefs weren't invented in them
times: 'why, thin, may I never live to see yesterday, if there's not
as much rale beauty in that smile that's diverting itself about them
sweet-breathing lips of yours, and in them two eyes of light that's
breaking both their hearts laughing at me, this minute, as would
encourage any poor fellow to expect a good turn from you--that is, whin
you could do it, without hurting or harming yourself; for it's he would
be the right rascal that could take it, if it would injure a silken hair
of your head.'

"'Well,' said the lady, with a mighty roguish smile, 'I shall call you
home to your dinner, at all events.'

"When Jack went back from his breakfast, he didn't slave himself after
the filly toy more, but walked about to view the demesne, and the
avenues, and the green walks, and nice temples, and fish-ponds, and
rookeries, and everything, in short, that was worth seeing. Towards
dinner-time, howiver, he began to have an eye to the way the sweet
crathur was to come, and sure enough she that wasn't one minute late.

"'Well, Jack,' says she, 'I'll keep you no longer in doubt:' for the
tender-hearted crathur saw that Jack, although he didn't wish to let
an to her, was fretting every now and then about the odd hook and the
bloody room--'So, Jack,' says sh