and a tea-pot and cups and saucers to be borrowed; all which was
accordingly done.

Well, suppose everything disposed for tomorrow's feast;--suppose Phaddhy
himself to have butchered the fowl, because Katty, who was not able to
bear the sight of blood, had not the heart to kill "the crathurs" and
imagine to yourself one of the servant men taking his red-hot tongs
out of the fire, and squeezing a large lump of hog's lard, placed in a
grisset, or _Kam_, on the hearth, to grease all their brogues; then see
in your mind's eye those two fine, fresh-looking girls, slyly take
their old rusty fork out of the fire, and going to a bit of three-corned
looking-glass, pasted into a board, or, perhaps, to a pail of water,
there to curl up their rich-flowing locks, that had hitherto never known
a curl but such, as nature gave them.

On one side of the hob sit two striplings, "thryin' wan another in their
catechiz," that they may be able to answer, with some credit, to-morrow.
On the other hob sits Briney, hard at his syntax, with the _Fibulae
AEsiopii_, as he called it, placed open at a particular passage, on the
seat under him, with a hope that, when Philemy will examine him,
the book may open at his favorite fable of "_Gallus Gallinaceus_--a
dung-hill cock." Phaddy himself is obliged to fast this day, there being
one day of his penance yet unperformed, since the last time he was at
his duty; which was, as aforesaid, about five years: and Katty, now that
everything is cleaned up and ready, kneels down in a corner to go over
her beads, rocking herself in a placid silence that is only broken by
an occasional malediction against the servants, or the cat, when it
attempts the abduction of one of the dead fowl.

The next morning the family were up before the sun, who rubbed his eyes,