he very pink of politeness--"we hope you'll show
yourself a betther Christin than to be ignorant o' your catechize. So.
ma'am, if it 'ud be plaisin' to you afore the company maybe you'd answer
it."

"Who made you my misthress, you blaggard flipe? who gave you authority
to ax me sich a question?" replied the other. "A fellow-servant like
myself! to the devil I pitch you. You, indeed! Faix, it's well come up
wid the likes o' you to ballyrag over me."

"Well, but ma'am dear, will you answer--that is, i' you plaise, for sure
we can't forget our manners, you know--will you jist answer what I
axed you? Oh, be me cowl, your face condimns you, my lady!" said Biddy,
abruptly changing her tone; "it does, you yolla Mullatty, it does. You
bethrayed the masther's house, an' Miss Oona, too, you villin o' blazes!
If you could see your face now--your guilty face!"

The spirit of her antagonist, being that of a woman, could bear no more.
The last words were scarcely uttered, when Lowry made a spring like a
tigress at her opponent, who, however, received this onset with a skill
and intrepidity worthy of Penthesilea herself. They were immediately
separated, but not until they had twisted and twined about one another
two or three times, after which, each displayed, by way of a trophy, a
copious handful of hair that had changed proprietor-ship during their
brief but energetic conflict.

In addition to this, there were visible on Kitty's face five small
streams of liquid gore, which, no doubt, would have been found to
correspond with the red expanded talons of her antagonist.

John O'Brien then put the question seriously to Lowry, who, now that
her blood was up, or probably feeling that she had betrayed herself,
declined to answer it at all.

"I'll answer nothin' I don't like," she replied, "an' I'll not be
ballyraged by any one--not even by you, Misther John; an' what's more,
I'll lave the sarvice at the shriek o' day to-morrow. I wouldn't live in
the house wid that one; my life 'udn't be safe undher the wan roof wid
her."

"Thin you'll get no carrecther from any one here," said Mrs. O'Brien;
"for, indeed, any way, there was never a minute's peace in the kitchen
since you came into it."

"Divil cares," she replied, with a toss of her head; "if I don't, I must
only live widout it, and will, I hope."

She then flounced out of the room, and kept grumbling in an insolent
tone of voice, until she got to her bed. Alick Nulty then detai