sitting down in my own little house, with the white table-
cloth on the table, and the butter in the dish, and the
strong, red tea in the tea-cup; and me pouring cream into
it, and, maybe, telling the children not to be wasting the
sugar, the things! and himself saying he'd got to mow the
big field to-day, or that the red cow was going to calve,
the poor thingl and that if the boys went to school, who
was going to weed the turnips--and me sitting drinking
my strong cup of tea, and telling him where that old
trapesing hen was laying.... Ah, God be with me!
an old creature hobbling along the roads on a stick. I
wish I was a young girl again, so I do, and himself com-
ing courting me, and him saying that I was a real nice lit-
tle girl surely, and that nothing would make him happy or
easy at all but me to be loving him.--Ah, the kind man
that he was, to be sure, the kind, decent man.... And
Sorca Reilly to be trying to get him from me, and Kate
Finnegan with her bold eyes looking after him in the
Chapel; and him to be saying that along with me they
were only a pair of old nanny goats.... And then me
to be getting married and going home to my own little
house with my man--ah, God be with me! and him kiss-
ing me, and laughing, and frightening me with his goings-
on. Ah, the kind man, with his soft eyes, and his nice
voice, and his jokes and laughing, and him thinking the
world and all of me--ay, indeed.... And the neigh-
bours to be coming in and sitting round the fire in the
night time, putting the world through each other, and
talking about France and Russia and them other queer
places, and him holding up the discourse like a learned