diamond!"

Good heavens! what was this talisman that had come into my possession?

"Look, girls," continued the old lady: "this is the great jew'l of all
Ireland. This red-faced man in the middle is poor Mick Hoggarty, a
cousin of mine, who was in love with me in the year '84, when I had just
lost your poor dear grandpapa. These thirteen sthreamers of red hair
represent his thirteen celebrated sisters,--Biddy, Minny, Thedy, Widdy
(short for Williamina), Freddy, Izzy, Tizzy, Mysie, Grizzy, Polly, Dolly,
Nell, and Bell--all married, all ugly, and all carr'ty hair. And of
which are you the son, young man?--though, to do you justice, you're not
like the family."

Two pretty young ladies turned two pretty pairs of black eyes at me, and
waited for an answer: which they would have had, only the old lady began
rattling on a hundred stories about the thirteen ladies above named, and
all their lovers, all their disappointments, and all the duels of Mick
Hoggarty. She was a chronicle of fifty-years-old scandal. At last she
was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing; at the conclusion of which
Mr. Polonius very respectfully asked me where he should send the pin, and
whether I would like the hair kept.

"No," says I, "never mind the hair."

"And the pin, sir?"

I had felt ashamed about telling my address: "But, bang it!" thought I,
"why _should_ I?--