He was a tall, muscular man, of some fifty years of age. He was well
made, and of that easy, swinging gait, that is rather the teaching of
Dame Nature, than of the dancing mistress or posture master. His face
was full and ruddy, betokening health, spirits, and that choleric
disposition to which his countrymen are said to incline, whether justly
or unjustly is not for me to determine. His hair had a reddish tinge,
and his whiskers were decidedly roseate, bearing still further testimony
to a slight irrascibility of temperament. But he was a good-looking man,
in spite of his hair and whiskers, which, as his wife admired them, are
not to be despised.

'Where's your mistress, Sam?' roared Mr Prothero across the farm-yard.

'In the barn, master,' answered a man, who was eating bread and cheese
on the gate, and swinging his legs pleasantly about.

'Tell her I want her,'

In answer to the summons, immediately appeared his worthy helpmate. She
carried a very beautiful half-blown rose in her hand, which, as soon as
she approached her husband, she placed carefully in his button-hole,
standing on tiptoe to perform this graceful Sunday morning service.

'Thank you, mother,' said Mr Prothero, smiling, and looking down
complacently on his little wife.

What went with all his lecture upon the profligacy of Irish beggars? I
suppose it was silently delivered from his breast to the rose, for none
of it came to his lips, though it was quite ready to be heard when the