you know--"

"I know," said Christian, thoughtfully, "I don't envy Barty Mangan! I
know Papa's having botheration with our people--"

"All the more reason for me to earn my living by painting!" responded
Larry cheerfully.

They were sitting at the edge of a patch of plantation. It was the
middle of May, and the young larches behind them were clad in a cloud
of pale emerald; the clumps of hawthorn, that were dotted about the
park, between the kennels and the river, were sending forth the
fragrance of their whiteness; the new green had come into the grass,
though it was almost smothered in the snow of daisies; primroses and
wild hyacinths had strayed from the little wood, and straggling down
the hillside, had joined hands and agreed, the first, to linger, the
latter, to hasten into blow, and so to share the month between them.
Just below, on the turn of the hill, was a big thicket of furze
bushes, more golden than gold, sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb. From Larry's woods across the Ownashee, the cuckoo's voice
came, as melodiously monotonous and as full of associations as the
bell of a village church. Silvery clouds were sailing very high in a
sky of thinnest, sweetest blue; little jets of sparkling sound, rising
and falling in it, bespoke the invisible, rapturous larks, tireless as
a playing fountain; and the sun blazed down on the boy and the girl
and the two little dogs seated there in the full of it.

Larry rolled over and over on the grass like a young colt.

"Oh, murder-in-Irish!" he groaned, in sheer ecstasy, "isn't it