“Why, last night, thin, didn’t I give my—­”

“Whist, ahagur! hould your tongue awhile, and let me go on.  Thruth’s best—­he dotes on that girl to such a degree, that if he doesn’t get her, he’ll never see another happy day while he’s alive.”

“All feasthalagh, Honor—­that won’t pass wid me; I know otherwise myself.  Do you think that if I hadn’t got you, I’d been unhappy four-an’-twenty hours, let alone my whole life?  I tell you that’s feasthalagh, an’ won’t pass.  He wouldn’t eat an ounce the less if he was never to get her.  You seen the breakfast he made this mornin’; I didn’t begrudge it to him, but may I never stir if that Flanagan wouldn’t ate a horse behind the saddle; he has a stomach that’d require a king’s ransom to keep it.”

“You know nothing of what I’m spakin’ about,” replied his wife.  “I wasn’t Una dhas dhun O’Brien in my best days; an’ be the vestment, you warn’t Connor, that has more feelin’, an’ spirit, an’ generosity in the nail of his little finger than ever you had in your whole carcass.  I tell you if he doesn’t get married to that girl he’ll break his heart.  Now how can he marry her except you take a good farm for him, and stock it dacently, so that he may have a home sich as she desarves to bring her to?”

“How do you know but they’ll give her a fortune when they find her bent on him?”

“Why, it’s not unpossible,” said the wife, immediately changing her tactics, “it’s not impossible, but I can tell you it’s very unlikely.”

“The best way, then, in my opinion, ’ud be to spake to Connor about breaking it to the family.”

“Why, that’s fair enough,” said the wife.  “I wondher myself I didn’t think of it, but the time was so short since last night.”

“It is short,” replied the miser, “far an’ away too short to expect any one to make up their mind about it.  Let them not be rash themselves aither, for I tell you that when people marry in haste, they’re apt to have time enough to repint at laysure.”

“Well, but Fardorougha acushla, now hear me, throth it’s thruth and sinse what you say; but still, avourneen, listen; now set in case that the Bodagh and his wife don’t consint to their marriage, or to do anything for them, won’t you take them a farm and stock it bravely?  Think of poor Connor, the darlin’ fine fellow that he is.  Oh, thin, Saver above, but it’s he id go to the well o’ the world’s end to ase you, if your little finger only ached.  He would, or for myself, and yet his own father to trate him wid sich—­”

It was in vain she attempted to proceed; the subject was one in which her heart felt too deep an interest to be discussed without tears.  A brief silence ensued, during which Fardorougha moved uneasily on his seat, took the tongs, and mechanically mended the fire, and, peering at his wife with a countenance twitched as if by tic douloureux, stared round the house with a kind of stupid wonder, rose up, then sat instantly down, and in fact exhibited many of those unintelligible and uncouth movements, which, in person of his cast, may be properly termed the hieroglyphics of human action, under feelings that cannot be deciphered either by those on whom they operate, or by those who witness them.