forth in gold letters, with a printed legend underneath announcing that Diana McNally was licensed to sell wines and spirits to be consumed on the premises.  Here Bridget and Mary Nolan held sway.  They were “stale girls” in the opinion of the neighbours, and therefore, as their aunt felt, the most suited for this post.  Maggie, their youngest sister, migrated between shop and bar, and spent much of her time in rolling up “ha’porths o’ twist” in scraps of newspaper.  Elleney, who was “tasty,” and possessed of a wonderful light hand, turned her talent for millinery to account, and soon Mrs. McNally was able to add trimmed hats and ready-made dresses to the other departments of her flourishing concern.  Predisposed as she was by nature to like any helpless young creature, she had rapidly grown to appreciate the girl’s talents, and was now genuinely fond of her, though it must be owned that her daughters occasionably grumbled, and that the real nieces were undisguisedly jealous.

Bridget looked up now, with a sniff, as Elleney began with great haste to hand the eggs about the table.

“You’ve been long enough over it, anyhow,” she remarked.  “Mary and me was wonderin’ whether ‘twas milkin’ the cow ye were or bakin’ the bread.”

“An’ she hasn’t brought the toast yet,” grumbled Mary, drawing up her chair.

“It’s very near done,” returned Elleney eagerly.  “Pat Rooney said he’d have it ready by the time I come back.”

“Pat Rooney!” exclaimed the eight voices, in varying tones of amazement and disapproval; even Mrs. McNally’s sounding forth a deep note of wondering concern.

“Pat Rooney, child!  What brings him into the house at this time o’ th’ mornin’?  What brings him here at all to-day indeed?”

“He come to fetch his pipe,” explained Elleney, scarlet with confusion; “and when he seen me so run, an’ so put about because I was a bit behind, he offered to stay an’ help me.  It’s him that’s makin’ the toast.”

Juliana McNally, a frosty-faced person, no longer in her first youth, looked round with a scandalised face.

“Did ye ever hear the like o’ that?” she exclaimed.  “Pat Rooney!  The impident fellow!  If I was you, m’mah, I’d walk him out o’ the kitchen this very minute.  Ye had no call to let him in at all, Elleney.  Not one of us ‘ud ever dream o’ such a thing, would we, Henny?”

“Indeed we would not,” returned Henny or Henrietta as she was indifferently called in the family.  “Cockin’ him up that way.  He had a right to know better, an’ not go forgettin’ himself and his place altogether.”

“Aye, indeed,” chimed in Bridget.  “Set him up!  Him and his ould cart.”

“Then if it was nothin’ but the cart that ailed him, Bridget,” returned Juliana severely, “there wouldn’t be much to complain of.  I’ll throuble ye not to be turnin’ up your nose at the beautiful new cart me mother sent for all the way to Dublin.  Ye paid pounds and pounds for that same cart, didn’t ye, m’mah?”