“Throw that ould threadbare Cothamore off o’ you,” replied Honor, “and beg of God to give you grace to sit down, an’ have common feeling and common sense.”

“If it’s money to get cloes either for yourself or Connor, there’s no use in it.  I needn’t sit; you don’t want a stitch, either of you.”

Honor, without more ado, seized the coat, and, flinging it aside, pushed him over to a seat on which she forced him to sit down.

“As heaven’s above me,” she exclaimed, “I dunna what come over you at all, at all.  Your money, your thrash, your dirt an’ filth, ever, ever, an’ for evermore in your thought, heart and sowl.  Oh, Chierna! to think of it, an’ you know there is a God above you, an’ that you must meet Him, an’ that widout your money too!”

“Ay, ay, the money’s what you want to come at; but I’ll not sit here to be hecthor’d.  What is it, I say again, you want?”

“Fardorougha ahagur,” continued the wife, checking herself, and addressing him in a kind and affectionate voice, “maybe I was spakin’ too harsh to you, but sure it was an’ is for your own good.  How an’ ever, I’ll thry kindness, and if you have a heart at all, you can’t but show it when you hear what I’m goin’ to say.”

“Well, well, go an,” replied the pertinacious husband; “but—­money—­ay, ay, is there.  I feel, by the way you’re comin’ about me, that there is money at the bottom of it.”

The wife raised her hands and eyes to heaven, shook her head, and after a slight pause, in which she appeared to consider her appeal a hopeless one, she at length went on in an earnest but subdued and desponding spirit—­

“Fardorougha, the time’s now come that will show the world whether you love Connor or not.”

“I don’t care a pin about the world; you an’ Connor know well enough that I love him.”

“Love for one’s child doesn’t come out merely in words, Fardorougha; actin’ for their benefit shows it better than spakin’.  Don’t you grant that?”

“Very well, may be I do, and again may be I don’t; there’s times when the one’s better than the other; but go an; may be I do grant it.”

“Now tell me where in this parish, ay, or in the next five parishes to it, you’d find sich a boy for a father or mother to be proud out of, as Connor, your own darlin’ as you often cau him?”

“Divil a one, Honor; damnho to the one; I won’t differ wid you in that.”

“You won’t differ wid me! the divil thank you for that.  You won’t indeed! but could you, I say, if you wor willin’?”

“I tell you I could not.”

“Now there’s sinse an’ kindness in that.  Very well, you say you’re gatherin’ up all the money you can for him.”

“For him—­him,” exclaimed the unconscious miser, “why, what do you mane—­for—­well—­ay—­yes, yes, I did say for him; it’s for him I’m keeping it—­it is, I tell you.”

“Now, Fardorougha, you know he’s ould enough to be settled in life on his own account, an’ you heard last night the girl he can get, if you stand to him, as he ought to expect from a father that loves him.”