their ears for them--you an' the girsha, an' let us see what you can
do. Nancy, achora, jist dash a gawliogue o' sweet milk into their
noggins--they're not like us that's well fed every day--. it's but
seldom they get the likes, the creatures--so dash in a brave gawliogue
o' the sweet milk for them. Take your time, Peety,--aisy, alanna, 'till
you get what I'm sayin; it'll nourish an put strinth in you."

"Ah, Misther Burke," replied Peety, in a tone of gratitude peculiar to
his class, "you're the ould* man still--ever an' always the large heart
an' lavish hand--an' so sign's on it--full an' plinty upon an' about
you--an' may it ever be so wid you an' yours, a chierna, I pray. An how
is the misthress, sir?"

* That is to say, the same man still.

"Throth, she's very well, Peety--has no raison to complain, thank God!"

"Thank God, indeed! and betther may she be, is my worst wish to her--an'
Masther Hycy, sir?--but I needn't ax how he is. Isn't the whole country
ringin' wid his praises;--the blessin' o' God an you, acushla"--this
was to Nancy Devlin, on handing them the new milk--"draw over, darlin',
nearer to the table--there now"--this to his daughter, whom he settled
affectionately to her food. "Ay, indeed," he proceeded, "sure there's
only the one word of it over the whole Barony we're sittin' in--that
there's neither fetch nor fellow for him through the whole parish. Some
people, indeed, say that Bryan M'Mahon comes near him; but only some,
for it's given up to Masther Hycy all to pieces."

"Faix, an' I for one, although I'm his father--amn't I, Rosha?" he
added, good-humoredly addressing his wife, who had just come into the