“N—­no,” said Roseen.  “Me grandfather says I’m bringin’ his white hairs with sorrow to the grave.”

“Ah, the ould gomeril!” retorted Mike unsympathetically.  “Bedad, what hairs he has isn’t white at all, but red as carrots!  Don’t ye be listenin’, Roseen, asthore.  Sure, ye wouldn’t marry ugly Mr. Quinn?” he repeated anxiously.

“I would not,” replied Roseen; “but I don’t like me grandfather to be talkin’ that way.  An’—­an’ his hair isn’t that red, Mike,” she added reprovingly; “ye have no call to be sayin’ it is.”

“If I never said worse nor you have said yourself often an’ often!” retorted the lad.  “Many’s the time I heard ye at it.”

“That was before I had sense,” replied Roseen, a trifle loftily; “ye have no call to be castin’ that up at me now.  Me an’ me grandfather has never fell out since I come here.”

“Oh, that indeed,” said Mike sarcastically; “ye’re gettin’ altogether too good an’ too grand.  Hothen indeed, I may as well make up my mind to it—­ye’ll be Mrs. Quinn before the year is out.  Sure, what chanst has a poor fellow the same as meself, wid the ould wans at home to support as well as meself, when there’s such a fine match as Mr. Quinn to the fore!  Och bedad! when ye’re sittin’ along wid him on your side-car, ye’ll never offer to throw so much as a look at poor Mike.”

At this affecting picture Roseen wept more than ever, and brokenly assured the honest fellow that not for all the Mister Quinns in the world would she ever forget him, and that she would wait for him till she was grey, she would, an’ marry nobody else, no matter what might happen.

Thus reassured, Mike could not do less than apologise for his intemperate language, and a reconciliation was in the act of taking place when Mr. Peter Rorke chanced to look over the hedge.  It was past milking-time, and he had come to see why his cows had not been driven in as usual.  Leaning on his stick and trembling with rage, he apostrophised the young pair in no measured terms.

“Now I understand, miss,” he added, after relieving his mind by a burst of eloquence, “now I understand why you thought so bad of Mr. Quinn’s kind offer.  It was this young schamer ye had in your mind—­him that ye should think no more of nor the dirt under your feet.”

“Well then, grandfather,” cried Roseen hotly, “I may as well tell ye straight out that I won’t stand here an’ hear Michael Clancy abused.  He’s all the husband ever I’ll have, an’ ye may make up your mind to that.”

Peter spluttered with fury and brandished his stick.  It was perhaps well for the girl that the hedge divided them.

“Get in wid ye into the house this minute out o’ me sight,” he screamed.  “Him your husband!  A dirty little beggar’s brat that I picked up out o’ the gutter for charity!”

“Charity yourself,” interrupted Mike, squaring his shoulders.  “I’ve done more work for ye nor ever ye paid me for—­now!  And the Clancys is as good as the Rorkes, an’ an oulder family, though we are down in the world, along wid bad luck an’ misfortun’.”