A certain cloud, which, as Dandy could perceive, was beginning to darken her countenance, suggested the quick turn of his last observation.  The countenance, however, cleared again, and she replied, “It is my name, and what is more, I never changed it.  I was hard to plaise—­and I am hard to plaise, and ever an’ always had a dread of gettin’ into bad company, especially when I knew that the same bad company was to last for life.”

“An ould maid, by the Rock of Cashel,” said Dandy, to himself.

“Blood alive, I wondher has she money; but here goes to thry.  Ah, Nancy,” he proceeded, “you wor too hard to plaise; and now, that you have got money like myself, nothing but a steady man, and a full purse, will shoot your convanience—­isn’t that pure gospel, now, you good lookin’ thief?”

Nancy’s face was now like a cloudless sky.  “Well,” she replied, “maybe there’s truth in that, and maybe there’s not; but I hope you are takin’ care of yourself?  That’s what I always did and ever will, plaise God.  How do you like the ham?”

“Divil a so well dressed a bit o’ ham ever I ett—­it melts into one’s mouth like a kiss from a purty woman.  Troth, Nancy, I think I’m kissing you ever since I began to ait it.”

“Get out,” said Nancy, laughing; “troth, you’re a quare one; but you know our Wickla’ hams is famous.”

“And so is your Wicklow girls,” replied Dandy; “but for my part, I’d sooner taste their lips than the best hams that ever were ett any day.”

“Well, but,” said Nancy, “did you ever taste our bacon? bekaise, if you didn’t, lave off what you’re at, and in three skips I’ll get you a rasher and eggs that’ll make you look nine ways at once.  Here, throw that by, it’s could, and I’ll get you something hot and comfortable.”

“Go on,” replied Dandy; “I hate idleness.  Get the eggs and rasher you spake of, and while you’re doin’ it I’ll thry and amuse myself wid what’s before me.  Industhry’s the first of virtues, Nancy, and next to that comes perseverance; I defy you in the mane time to do a rasher as well as you did this ham—­hoeh—­och—­och.  God bless me, a bit was near stickin’ in my throat.  Is your wather good here? and the raison why I ax you is, that I’m the devil to plaise in wather; and on that account I seldom take it without a sup o’ spirits to dilute it, as the docthors say, for, indeed, that’s the way it agrees with me best.  It’s a kind of family failin’ with us—­devil a one o’ my blood ever could look a glass of mere wather in the face without blushin’.”

Dandy was now upon what they call the simplicity dodge; that is to say, he affected that character of wisdom for which certain individuals, whose knowledge of life no earthly experience ever can improve, are so extremely anxious to get credit.  Every word he uttered was accompanied by an oafish grin, so ludicrously balanced between simplicity and cunning, that Nancy, who had been half her life on the lookout for such a man, and who knew that this indecision of expression was the characteristic of the tribe with which she classed him, now saw before her the great dream of her heart realized.