“Broke your side-comb, did I?  Well, then, you couldn’t be in better hands, darlin’, here’s a pair I make you a present of, and maybe they won’t set you all off to pieces; here, darlin’, wear these for my sake.”

“But are you making me a present of these beauties, Cannie?”

“Troth an’ I am, Lilly darlin’, and wish they were betther for your sake—­what’s that I said? a present! oh the sorrow bit, I must have my payment—­aisy now, darlin’, my own sweet Lilly; there now, we’re clear.”

“Upon my word, Mr. Magrath, I don’t know what to say to you, but you’re such a great strong fellow, that a poor weak girl like me is but a child in your arms; are these real tortoise-shell though?”

“You may swear it; do you think I’d offer you anything else?  But now listen, my darlin’ girl, take this shawl, it’s ’worth five-and-twenty guineas at least, troth, poor thing! it wasn’t since their marriage it was bought; take it, I say, and go up widout sayin’ a word, and lay it just where it was before, and if she seems surprised on findin’ it there, tell her you suppose I forgot it, or if she won’t believe you, and that all fails you, say that the Cannie Soogah, although she knows nothing about him, is a man that’s undher great obligations to her family, and that he only tuck that method of payin’ back a debt to her that he honestly owed to them, for, afther all, isn’t she one of them?”

Lilly shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears, at the manly and modest generosity of the pedlar.

“Little you know then, Mr. Magrath, the load you have taken off my dear mistress’s heart, and the delight you have brought upon the whole family.”

“Well, Lilly dear, sure if I did, amn’t I well paid, for it? thanks to your two sweet lips for that.  Sure, bad cess to me, but it was on your account I did it.”

A vile grin, or rather an awkward blank smile, forced by an affectation of gallantry, accompanied the lie which he uttered.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Lilly, “on my ’account, don’t think to pass that upon me; however, I can forgive you a great many things in consequence of your behavior—­just now.”

“And yet you abused me for it,” he replied, laughing, “but sure I knew that a purty girl always likes to be kissed; bad cess to me, but the same behavior comes naturally to me.”

“Go now,” said Lilly, with a comic and peremptory manner; “go your rounds, I say; you know very well that I mane your behavior about the shawl, and not your great strong impudence.”

The pedlar, after winking and nodding meanings into her words that she had never thought of, slung his pack over his shoulder as usual, and proceeded on his rounds.