Ellen gave him a blushing look of reproach, and desired him to keep a proper tongue in his head.

“But what will we do with the five hundred, Ellen, that the squire and Mr. Reilly made up between them?”

“We’ll consult Mr. Reilly about it,” she replied, “and no doubt but he’ll enable us to lay it out to the best advantage.  Now, Fergus dear, I must go,” she added; “you know she can’t bear me even now to be any length of time away from her.  Here’s God bless them both, and continue them in the happiness they now enjoy.”

“Amen,” replied Fergus, “and here’s God bless ourselves, and make us more lovin’ to one another every day we rise; and here’s to take a foretaste of it now, you thief.”

Some slight resistance, followed by certain smacking sounds, closed the interview; for Ellen, having started to her feet, threw on her cloak and bonnet, and hurried out of the room, giving back, however, a laughing look at Fergus as she escaped.

In a few months afterwards they were married, and lived with the old man until he became a grandfather to two children, the eldest a boy, and the second a girl.  Upon the same day of their marriage their humble but faithful friends were also united; so that there was a double wedding.  The ceremony, in the case of Reilly and his Cooleen Bawn, was performed by the Reverend Mr. Brown first, and the parish priest afterwards; Mr. Strong, who had been for several years conjoined to Mrs. Smellpriest, having been rejected by both parties as the officiating clergyman upon the occasion, although the lovely bride was certainly his parishioner.  Age and time, however, told upon the old man; and at the expiration of three years they laid him, with many tears, in the grave of his fathers.  Soon after this Reilly and his wife, accompanied by Fergus and Ellen—­for the Cooleen Bawn would not be separated from the latter—­removed to the Continent, where they had a numerous family, principally of sons; and we need not tell our learned readers, at least, that those young men distinguished not only themselves, but their name, by acts of the most brilliant courage in continental warfare.  And so, gentle reader, ends the troubled history of Willy Reilly and his own Cooleen Bawn.