h, where a board keeps them safely within until they have
finished laying. There are six children besides Art, and my ambition is
to photograph, or, still better, to sketch the family circle together;
the hens cackling under the settle, the pig ('him as pays the rint')
snoring in the doorway, as a proprietor should, while the children are
picturesquely grouped about. I never succeed, because Mrs. Rooney sees
us as we turn into the lane, and calls to the family to make itself
ready, as quality's comin' in sight. The older children can scramble
under the bed, slip shoes over their bare feet, and be out in front of
the cabin without the loss of a single minute. 'Mickey jew'l,' the baby,
who is only four, but 'who can handle a stick as bould as a man,' is
generally clad in a ragged skirt, slit every few inches from waist to
hem, so that it resembles a cotton fringe. The little coateen that tops
this costume is sometimes, by way of diversion, transferred to the dog,
who runs off with it; but if we appear at this unlucky moment, there
is a stylish yoke of pink ribbon and soiled lace which one of the girls
pins over Mickey jew'l's naked shoulders.

Moya, who has this eye for picturesque propriety, is a great friend
of mine, and has many questions about the Big Country when we take our
walks. She longs to emigrate, but the time is not ripe yet. "The girls
that come back has a lovely style to thim," she says wistfully, "but
they're so polite they can't live in the cabins anny more and be
contint." The 'boys' are not always so improved, she thinks. "You'd
niver find a boy in Ballyfuchsia that would say annything rude to a
girl; but when they come back from Ameriky, it's too free they've grown
intirely." It is a dull life for them, she says, when they have once
been away; though to be sure Ballyfuchsia is a pleasanter place than
Dooclone, where the priest does not approve of dancing, and, however
secretly you may do it, the curate hears of it, and will speak your name
in church.

It was Moya who told me of Kitty's fortune. "She's not the match that
Farmer Brodigan's daughter Kathleen is, to be sure; for he's a rich man,
and has given her an iligant eddication in Cork, so that she can look
high for a husband. She won't be takin' up wid anny of our boys, wid
her two hundred pounds and her twenty cows and her pianya. Och, it's a
thriminjus player she is, ma'am. She's that quick and that strong that
you'd say she wouldn't lave a stri