to work in for the first time, Nancy would sew on the fore-part of each
sleeve a stout patch of ould cloth, to keep them from being worn by the
spade; so that when she'd rip these off them every Saturday night, they
would look as new and fresh as if he hadn't been working in them at all,
at all.

"Then when Jack came home in the winter nights, it would do your heart
good to see Nancy sitting at her wheel, singing, '_Stachan Varagah_,'
or '_Peggy Na Laveen_,' beside a purty clear fire, with a small pot of
_murphys_ boiling on it for their supper, or laid up in a wooden
dish, comfortably covered with a clane praskeen on the well-swept
hearth-stone; whilst the quiet, dancing blaze might be seen blinking in
the nice earthen plates and dishes that stood over against the side-wall
of the house. Just before the fire you might see Jack's stool waiting
for him to come home; and on the other side, the brown cat washing her
face with her paws, or sitting beside the dog that lay asleep, quite
happy and continted, purring her song, and now and then looking over at
Nancy, with her eyes half-shut, as much as to say, 'Catch a happier pair
nor we are, Nancy, if you can.'

"Sitting quietly on the roost above the door, were Dicky the cock, and
half-a-dozen hens, that kept this honest pair in eggs and _egg-milk_ for
the best part of the year, besides enabling Nancy to sell two or three
clutches of March-birds every season, to help to buy wool for Jack's
big-coat, and her own gray-beard gown and striped red and blue
petticoat.

"To make a long story short--No two could be more comfortable,
considering every thing. But, indeed, Jack was always obsarved to have
a dacent ginteel turn with him; for he'd scorn to see a bad gown on his