"Well, she can pull that ere buffalo around her."

"Ou, hou, hou!" cried Bridget, breathing on her little bare hands, which
she kept pressed to her lips.

"I hope, sir, you are not going to take us to the poorhouse," said Paul;
"we don't want to go there. The priest that attended my mother--God rest
her soul!--told us he would provide for us."

"Indeed! How can he do so?" said Van Stingey.

"Why, sir, I don't know; but perhaps he will write to my uncle, who is a
vicar general in Ireland, and he will send us money to take us back
home."

"Is your uncle in the British sarvice, then, and a general in the army?"

"No, sir, but he is a priest next to the bishop in station in the
church."

"That's it, eh? Wal, I guess you better not talk of going back, any how.
You must live here in this free country, and learn to be a man and a
Christian--a thing you could not be at home, in the old country."

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Paul; "the very best Christians are in
Ireland, which was once called the 'Isle of Saints,' when all the people
were Catholics; and where I came from, even now, they are all mostly
Catholics. There are in the whole parish but two _peelers_, the minister
and his wife, and the tithe proctor, or collector of tithes; in all,
five Protestants."