“And it’s all right,” replied the other.  “Well, as I was going to say, that Mrs. Mainwaring is breakin’ her heart about this unforthunate marriage of her daughter to Scareman.  It seems—­but this is between ourselves—­it seems, my dear, that he’s a dark, hard-hearted scrub, that ‘id go to hell or farther for a shillin’, for a penny, ay, or for a farden.  An’ the servant that was here afore me—­a clean, good-natured girl she was, in throth—­an’ got married to a blacksmith, at the cross-roads beyant—­tould me that the scrames, an’ yells, an’ howlins, and roarins—­the cursin’ and blasphaymin’—­an’ the laughin’, that she said was worse than all—­an’ the rattlin’ of chains—­the Lord save us—­would make one think themselves more in hell than in any place upon this world.  And it appears the villain takes delight in it, an’ makes lashins of money by the trade.”

“The sorra give him good of it!” exclaimed Alley; “an’ I can tell you, it’s Lady Lucy—­(divil may care, thought she—­I’ll make a lady of her at any rate—­this ignorant creature doesn’t know the differ) it’s Lady Lucy, I say, that will be sorry to hear of this same marriage—­for you must know—­what’s this your name is?”

“Nancy Gallaher, dear.”

“And were you ever married, Nancy?”

“If I wasn’t the fau’t was my own, ahagur! but I’ll tell you more about that some day.  No, then, I was not, thank God!”

“Thank God!  Well, throth, it’s a quare thing to thank God for that, at any rate.”  This, of course, was parenthetical.  “Well, my dear,” proceeded Alley, “you must know that Mrs. Scareman before her marriage—­of course, she was then Miss Norton—­acted in the kippacity of tutherer general to Lady Lucy, except durin’ three months that she was ill, and had to go to England to thry the wathers.”

“What wathers?” asked Nancy.  “Haven’t we plenty o’ wather, an’ as good as they have, at home?”

“Not at all,” replied Alley, who sometimes, as the reader may have perceived, drew upon an imagination of no ordinary fertility; “in England they have spakin’ birds, singin’ trees, and goolden wather.  So, as I was sayin’, while she went to thry the goolden wather------”

“Troth, if ever I get poor health, I’ll go there myself,” observed Nancy, with a gleam of natural humor in her clear blue eye.”

“Well, while she went to thry this goolden watlier, her mother, Mrs. Norton, came in her place as tutherer general, an’ that’s the way they became acquainted—­Lady Lucy and her.  But, my dear, I want to tell you a saicret.”

We are of opinion, that if Nancy’s cap had been off at the moment, her two ears might have been observed to erect themselves on each side of her head with pure and unadulterated curiosity.

“Well, Miss Alley, what is it, ahagur?”

“Now, you won’t breathe this to any human creature?”

“Is it me?  Arrah! little you know the woman you’re spakin’ to.  Divil a mortal could beat me at keepin’ a saicret, at any rate; an’ when you tell me this, maybe I’ll let you know one or two that’ll be worth hearin’.”