have the M'Swiggin nose; an' it can't be from any one else you take your
high notions. All you show of the gentleman, Hycy, it's not hard to name
them you have it from, I believe."

"Spoken like a Sybil. Mother, within the whole range of my female
acquaintances I don't know a woman that has in her so much of the
gentleman as yourself--my word and honor, mother."

"Behave, Hycy--behave now," she replied, simpering; "however truth's
truth, at any rate."

We need scarcely say that the poor mendicant was delighted at the notion
of having his daughter placed in the family of so warm and independent a
man as Jemmy Burke. Yet the poor little fellow did not separate from the
girl without a strong manifestation of the affection he bore her. She
was his only child--the humble but solitary flower that blossomed for
him upon the desert of life.

"I lave her wid you," he said, addressing Mrs. Burke with tears in his
eyes, "as the only treasure an' happiness I have in this world. She is
the poor man's lamb, as I have hard read out of Scripture wanst; an' in
lavin' her undher your care, I lave all my little hopes in this world
wid her. I trust, ma'am, you'll guard her an' look afther her as if she
was one of your own."

This unlucky allusion might have broken up the whole contemplated
arrangement, had not Hycy stepped in to avert from Peety the offended
pride of the patroness.

"I hope, Peety," he said, "that you are fully sensible of the honor Mrs.