spared from home sometimes," said Mrs. Murphy. "I thought you would
help Biddy and me to pick black currants. There are quarts and
quarts of 'em in the garden, and the maids can't do it by
themselves, poor things. Well, Biddy, you have got to help me
today."

"Oh, mammy, I just can't," answered Biddy. "I'm due down at the
shore, and I want to go a bit of the way back with Nora. You can't
expect me to help you today, mammy."

"There she is, Nora--there she is!" exclaimed the good lady, her
face growing red and her eyes flashing fire; "not a bit of good, not
worth her keep, I tell her. Why shouldn't she stay at home and help
her mother? Do you hear me, Squire Murphy? Give your orders to the
girl; tell her to stay at home and help her mother."

"Ah, don't be bothering me," said Squire Murphy. "It's out I'm going
now. I have enough on my own shoulders without attending to the
tittle-tattle of women."

He rose from the table, and the next moment had left the room.

"Dear, dear! there are bad times ahead for poor Old Ireland," said
Mrs. Murphy. "Children don't obey their parents; husbands don't
respect their wives; it's a queer state of the country. When I was
young, and lived at my own home in Tipperary, we had full and
plenty. There was a bite and a sup for every stranger who came to
the door, and no one talked of money, nor thought of it neither. The
land yielded a good crop, and the potatoes--oh, dear! oh, dear! that
was before the famine. The famine brought us a lot of bad luck, that