I bribe you?' says she, with a sly smile--for Ned himself
was a well-looking young fellow at the time.

"'I'll show you that,' says Ned, 'if you tell me where you live; but,
for fraid you forget it--with them two lips of your own, my darling.'

"'There, in that great house,' says the maid; 'my mistress is one of the
beautifullest and richest young ladies in London, and she wishes to know
where your master could be heard of.'

"'Is that the house?' says Ned, pointing to it.

"'Exactly', says she: 'that's it.' 'Well, acushla,' says he, 'you've a
purty and an innocent-looking face; but I'm tould there's many a trap in
London well baited. Just only run over while I'm looking at you, and let
me see that purty face of yours smiling at me out of the windy that that
young lady is peeping at us from.'

"This she had to do.

"'My master,' thought Ned, while she was away, 'will aisily find out
what kind of a house it is, any how, if that be it.'

"In a short time he saw her in the windy, and Ned then gave her a sign
to come down to him.

"'My master,' says he, 'never was afeard to show his face, or tell his
name to any one--he's a Squire Fowler,' says he--'a Sarjen-major in a
great militia regiment: he shot five men in his time; and there's not a
gentleman in the country he lives in that dare say Boo to his blanket.
And now, what's your name,' says Ned, 'you flattering little blackguard
you?'

"'My name's Betty Cunningham,' says she.

"'And next, what's your mistress's, my darling?' says Ned.

"'There it is,' says she, handing him a card.

"'Very well,' says Ned, the thief, looking at it with a great air,
making as if he could read; 'this will just do, a _colleen bawn_.'

"'Do you read in your country with the wrong side of the print up?' says
she.

"'Up or down,' says Ned, 'it's all one to us in Ireland; but, any how,
I'm left-handed, you deluder!'

"The upshot of it was, that her mistress turned out to be a great
hairess, and a great beauty; and she and Fowler got married in less than
a month. So, you see, it's true enough that the Englishwomen are fond of
Irishmen," says Shane; "but, Tom, with, submission for stopping you, go
on with your Wake."

"The next play, then, is Marrying----"

"Hooh!" says Andy Morrow, "why, all their plays are about kissing and
marrying, and the like of that."

"Surely and they are, sir," says Tom.

"It's all the nathur of the baste," says Alick.

"The next is marrying. A bo