“Ay, indeed,” she would proceed—­“troth an’ conscience, Hugh, avourneen”—­avourneen being pronounced with a civil bitterness that was perfectly withering—­“troth an’ conscience, Hugh, avourneen, it’s truth you’re speaking, and not only that, Hugh darling, but he’s as dark as the old dioul betimes, so he is, and runs into such fits of blackness and anger, for no reason—­Hugh, dheelish, for no reason in life, man alive.  Are, you listening, Hugh? for it’s to you I’m speaking, dear—­for no reason in life, acushla, only because he’s a dirty, black bodagh, that his whole soul and body’s not worth the scrapings of a pot in a hard summer.  Did you hear me, Hugh jewel?  Felix, go out, avourneen, ye onbiddable creature, and look after them ditchers, and see that they don’t play upon us to-day, as they did on Saturday.”

Felix, who understood the sister’s irony, went out on every such, occasion with perfect good will, and indulged in an uncontrollable fit of laughter at her masked attack upon his brother.

No sooner was he gone than Hugh either fled at once, or gathered himself up against the vehement assault he knew she was about to make upon him.

“Why then, Hugh O’Donnell, ar’n’t you a dirty, black bodagh, to go to open upon the poor boy for no reason in life?  What did he do that you should abuse him, you nager you? and it’s well known that you’re a nager, and that your heart’s in the shillin’.  Oh! it’s long before you’d go to fair or market and bring home the best gown, or shawl, or mantle in it to the only sister you have, as he does.  Ay, ar’n’t you the cream of a dirty, black bodagh, for to go to attack the poor boy only for speaking to a dacent and a purty girl that hasn’t a stain upon her name, or upon the name of one of her seed, breed, or generation, you miserly nager.  I wouldn’t say that before him, because I want to keep him under me; but where, I say, could you get so fine a young slip as poor Felix is’?  My soul to the dev—­God pardon me!  I was going to say what I oughtn’t to say:  but I tell you, Hugh, that you must quit of it; he’s the only brother we have, and it’s the least we should be kind to him.”

During this harangue poor Hugh’s flush of passion usually departed from him.  As we said, he loved his only brother; and so vivid were Maura’s representations of his virtues, that Hugh, his passion having subsided, was usually borne away by the pathos with which she closed her observations respecting him.  A burst of tears always concluded the dialogue on her part, and deep regret on the part of Hugh; for, in fact, the charges against Felix were such only as none except they themselves in the very exuberance of their affection, would think of bringing against him.

The reader is already acquainted with the allusion made by Maura to the “dacent and purty girl that hasn’t a stain upon her name, or upon the name of one of her seed, breed, or generation.”  This “purty” girl is no other than Alley Bawn Murray; and although Maura, from a sheer spirit of contradiction, spoke of her to Hugh in a favorable point of view, yet nothing could be more obstinately bitter than her opposition to such a match on the part of Felix.