“An’ do you dar’ for to call me a barge? * * * * Blast your insurance! be this an’ be that, for a farden I’d malivogue the devil out o’ you.”

“We’re not puttin’ it past you, madam, you’re blaggard enough to fight like a man; but we’re not goin’ to make a blaggard an’ a bully of ourselves, in the mane time.”

[The conversation, of which we are giving a very imperfect report, was garnished by both ladies with sundry vituperative epithets, which it would be inconsistent with the dignity of our history to record.]

“That’s bekase you haven’t the blood of a hen in you * * * sure we know what you are!  But howld! be me sowl, you’re doin’ me for all that.  Ah, ha!  I see where you’re ladin’ me; but it won’t do, Miss Kitty Lowry.  I’ll bring you back to the catechize agin.  You’d light the straw to get away in the smoke; but you’re worth two gone people yet, dhough.”

“Worth half a dozen o’ you, any day.”

“Well, as we’re both to the fore, we’ll soon see that.  How did you know, my lady, that the masther’s hall door was left open to-night?  Answer me that, on the nail!”

This was what might be very properly called a knock-down blow; for if the reader but reflects a moment he will see that Kitty, on taxing her antagonist, after her rescue, with leaving it open, directly betrayed herself, as there was and could have been no one in the house cognizant of the fact at the time unless the guilty person.  With this latter exception, Alick Nulty was the, only individual aware of it, and from whom the knowledge of it could come.  Kitty, therefore, by her over-anxiety to exculpate herself from a charge which had not been made, became the unconscious instrument I of disclosing the fact of her having left the door open.

This trying query, coming upon her unexpectedly as it did, threw her into palpable confusion.  Her face became at once suffused with a deep scarlet hue, occasioned by mingled shame and resentment, as was at once evident from the malignant and fiery glare which she turned upon her querist.

“Get out,” she replied; “do you think I’d think it worth my while to answer the likes o’ you?  I’d see you farther than I could look first.  You, indeed! faugh! musha bad luck to your impidence!”

“Oh, i’ you plaise, ma’am,” said Biddy, dropping a courtesy, that might well be termed the very pink of politeness—­“we hope you’ll show yourself a betther Christin than to be ignorant o’ your catechize.  So. ma’am, if it ‘ud be plaisin’ to you afore the company maybe you’d answer it.”

“Who made you my misthress, you blaggard flipe? who gave you authority to ax me sich a question?” replied the other.  “A fellow-servant like myself! to the devil I pitch you.  You, indeed!  Faix, it’s well come up wid the likes o’ you to ballyrag over me.”

“Well, but ma’am dear, will you answer—­that is, i’ you plaise, for sure we can’t forget our manners, you know—­will you jist answer what I axed you?  Oh, be me cowl, your face condimns you, my lady!” said Biddy, abruptly changing her tone; “it does, you yolla Mullatty, it does.  You bethrayed the masther’s house, an’ Miss Oona, too, you villin o’ blazes!  If you could see your face now—­your guilty face!”