“She’s afther fetchin’ it herself from the dairy,” she remarked.  “It’s herself has the grand hand for butter, God bless her!”

“Ahmin!” said Pat emphatically, “she’s the grand little girl altogether, there’s not her aiquals in Ireland.”

“Aye, indeed,” chimed in his wife, “an’ lookit how humble she is—­no more stuck up now nor she was when she was a little slip of a colleen, leppin’ about on the Rock, beyant.”

“An’ she has the fine fortun’, mind ye,” said Judy proudly, “the Masther left her a power o’ money—­’deed an’ he did, a power o’ money!”

“Bedad, he must have left her a good bit,” agreed Pat meditatively, “and she desarves it all.  ’Pon me word, I wisht Mike had left that ould rick alone.  Sure, it’s her that’s the loser now.  It’s into her pocket all that fine money ’ud be comin’.”

“Musha,” exclaimed “Herself,” “I declare I am sick an’ tired hearing ye goin’ on that way, an’ me tellin’ ye twenty times a day that it is the last thing poor Mike ‘ud do.  He would never dhrame o’ such a thing, him that wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Many a time I seen him drivin’ home the sheep, an’ he’d have his heart scalded wid them runnin’ this way an’ that, an’ he’d niver offer to rise a stick to them, or so much as to peg a stone at them.”

“Ah, ha! then, maybe he didn’t!” cried Pat triumphantly; “I know me own son as well as ye do, ma’am, an’ he has a fine sperrit of his own as quiet as he is.  There now!  Who done it if he didn’t?  Tell me that if ye plase.”

“Sure them hayricks often and often goes on fire of themselves,” retorted Mrs. Clancy, flushed and tearful; “ye know that as well as me, Pat.  Weren’t they at the loss of a lovely stack down there at McEvoy’s, four year ago?  No, it was five, I believe—­look at that now.”

Pat laughed derisively. “’Pon me word, Mary, you have no more sense nor herself there,” nodding towards Judy.  “Sure, McEvoy’s rick took fire because they were afther stackin’ it, an’ it wet.  Whoever heard of a three-year-old rick takin’ fire of itself, an’ every bit of it as dry as a bone?”

“Troth it was,” put in Judy, “powerful dry, ma’am.  Sure, when a little spark got on it out o’ me pipe it burnt up the same as if it was tindher.”

As she spoke she drew her stool up to the table; she was unusually loquacious and sensible that day.  The potations in which she, in common with the other members of Roseen’s establishment at Monavoe, had indulged having apparently at once loosened her tongue and brightened her wits.

Pat’s face suddenly changed; his eyes flashed, and his voice shook when next he spoke, though he endeavoured to assume a casual air.

“An’ was it smokin’ alongside o’ the rick you were, Judy?  When was that, agrah?”

“Sure, it was the very night I lost me pipe,” replied Judy.  “Roseen bid me go out an’ watch for Mike an’ tell him the Masther had her locked in an’ she couldn’t get out to spake to him.”