once, Mister Reddy, though you wouldn't think it now; but the cares of
the world and a family takes the shine out of us. I remember when the
men used to be making hats in my father's establishment--for my father
was the most extensive hatter in Dublin--I don't know if you knew my
father was a hatter; but you know, sir, manufactures must be followed,
and that's no reason why people shouldn't enjoy po'thry and refinement.
Well, I was going to tell you how romantic I was, and when the men were
making the hats--I don't know whether you ever saw them making hats----"

Reddy declared he never did.

"Well, it's like the witches round the iron pot in _Macbeth_; did
you ever see Kemble in _Macbeth_? Oh! he'd make your blood freeze,
though the pit is so hot you wouldn't have a dhry rag on you. But to
come to the hats. When they're making them, they have hardly any crown
to them at all, and they are all with great sprawling wide flaps to
them; well, the moment I clapt my eyes on one of them, I thought of a
Spanish nobleman directly, with his slouched hat and black feathers
like a hearse. Yes, I assure you, the broad hat always brought to my
mind a Spanish noble or an Italian noble (that would do as well, you
know), or a robber or a murderer, which is all the same thing."

Reddy could not conceive a hat manufactory as a favourable nursery for
romance; but as the lady praised his song, he listened complacently to
her hatting.

"And that's another beautiful iday, sir," continued the lady, "where
you make the rocks jealous of each other--that's so beautiful to bring
in a bit of nature into a metaphysic that way."

"You flatter me, ma'am," said Reddy; "but if I might speak of my own
work--that is, if a man may _ever_ speak of his own work----"

"And why not, sir?" asked Mrs. Riley, with a business-like air; "who
has so good a right to speak of the work as the man who _done_ it,
and knows what's in it?"

"That's a very sensible remark of yours, ma'am, and I will therefore
take leave to say, that the idea _I_ am proudest of, is the _dark_ and
_heavy_ grief of the heart being compared to a _black_ stone, and its
_depth_ of misery implied by the _sea_."

"Thrue for you," said Mrs. Riley; "and the _blue_ sea--ah! that didn't
escape me; that's an elegant touch--the black stone and the blue sea;
and black and blue, such a beautiful conthrast!"

"I own," said Reddy, "I attempted, in that, the bold and daring style of
expression which