t you love! Won't you, Denis?"

"I will, Susy; and I will love the shirts for the sake of the hands that
made them."

"And I won't allow Susy Connor to help me as she used to do: they'll be
all Alley's sewin' and mine."

"The poor colleen--listen to her!" exclaimed the affectionate father;
"indeed you will, Susy; ay, and hem his cravats, that we'll send him
ready made an' all."

"Yes," replied Denis, "but as to Susy Connor--hem--why, upon
considera--he--hem--upon second thoughts, I don't see why you should
prevent her from helping you; she's a neighbor's daughter, and a
well-wisher, of whose prosperity in life I'd always wish to hear.

"The poor girl's very bad in her health, for the last three weeks,"
observed his other sister Alley: "she has lost her appetite, an' is cast
down entirely in her spirits. You ought to go an' see her, Denis, before
you set out for the college, if it was only on her dacent father's
account. When I was tellin' her yisterday that you wor to get the
bishop's letter for Maynewth to-morrow, she was in so poor a state of
health that she nearly fainted. I had to give her a drink of wather, and
sprinkle her face with it. Well, she's a purty crathur, an' a good girl,
an' was always that, dear knows!"

"Denis achree," said his mother, somewhat alarmed, "are you any way
unwell? Why your heart's batin' like a new catched chicken! Are you
sick, acushla; or are you used to this?"

"It won't signify," replied Denis, gently raising himself from his
mother's arms, "I will sit up, mother; it's but a sudden stroke or two
of _tremor cordis_, produced probably by having my mind too much upon
one object."

"I think," said his father, "he will be the betther of a little drop of
the poteen made into punch, an' for that matter we can all take a sup
of it; as there's no one here but ourselves, we will have it snug an'
comfortable."

Nothing resembles an April day more than the general disposition of
the Irish people. When old Denis's proposal for the punch was made, the
gloom which hung over the family--originating, as it did, more in joy
than in soitow--soon began to disappear. Their countenances gradually
brightened, by and by mirth stole out, and ere the punch had
accomplished its first round, laughter, and jest, and good-humor,--each,
in consequence of the occasion, more buoyant and vivacious than usual,
were in full play. Denis himself, when animated by the unexcised liquor,
threw off his dejection,