“For God’s sake, sir, have patience with me for about a month or six weeks, and I will be able to pay it all easily.”

“If I was my own master,” returned Val, “it would give me pleasure to do so, but I am not.”

Here there was a groan from Solomon of compassion for the poor widow, followed by a second, which was clearly a comment upon the first.  What a pity, said the first, to see so interesting a young widow without the means of paying her rent—­and is it not a wicked and hard-hearted world, said the second that has not in it one individual to befriend her!  Mrs. Tyrrell looked round on hearing an expression of sympathy, and there was Solomon gazing on her with a look, in which admiration and sympathy were so well feigned, that she felt grateful to Solomon in her heart.  As for Phil, whether he gazed at her, his father, or at the attorney, such was the comprehensive latitudinarianism of his squint, that she felt it impossible to tell; neither, indeed, did she care.  She was now in tears, and Val having declared his determination to proceed, was silent, as if out of respect to her feelings.  At length she rose up, and when on the eve of going out, she asked for the last time:—­

“Mr. M’Clutchy is there no hope?  I trust, sir, that when you consider how long my family and my husband have been living on this property, you’ll think better of it than to bring myself and my poor orphan boy to beggary and ruin.  What will become of him and myself!”

“D—­n my honor, Mrs. Tyrrell, but I feel for you,” said Phil, eagerly, as if rushing head foremost into a fit of the purest humanity.

“Do not be cast down, Mrs. Tyrrell,” said Solomon, “there is one who can befriend the widow, and who will be a father to the fatherless.  Rely on Him!—­who knows but an instrument may be raised up for your relief.  Don’t be thus cast down.”

“No,” said Phil, “do not, or you will only spoil them devlish fine eyes of yours, Mrs. Tyrrell, by crying.  Come, come, father, you must give her,the time she asks; upon my honor, I’ll guarantee she, won’t disappoint.

“And, if he is not sufficient, I will join him,” said Solomon; “you may rest upon her word, my friend, for I am satisfied that no serious falsehood’s in the habit of proceeding from a mouth so sweet and comely in expression, as Mrs. Tyrrell’s.  Come, Val, have a heart, and be compassionate towards the fair widow.”

“If you or Phil will pay the money,” said M’Clutchy, “well and good; but you both know, that otherwise it is out of my power.”  There is a vast deal of acuteness of observation in Irish women, together with a quickness of perception, that sometimes resembles instinct.  Mrs. Tyrrell’s purity of feeling and good sense were offended at the compliments which the attorney and Phil mixed up with the sympathy they expressed for her.  She felt something jar disagreeably upon her natural delicacy, by their selecting the moment of her distress for giving utterance to language, which, coming at any time from either of them to one in her station of life, was improper; but, under the present circumstances, an insult, and an impertinent trifling with her affliction.