“The dickens a bit o’ me thought of it,” replied the wife, laughing at the unintentional allusion to the circumspect character of Peter’s eyes,—­“upon my faix, I didn’t—­ha, ha, ha!”

“Why, thin, but you’re full o’your fun, sure enough, if that’s what you’re at.  Maybe, avourneen, if I had looked right afore me, as I ought to do, it’s Katty Murray an’ her snug farm I’d have, instead of”—­

Peter hesitated.  The rapid feelings of a woman, and an Irishwoman, quick and tender, had come forth and subdued him.  She had not voluntarily alluded to his eyes; but on seeing Peter offended, she immediately expressed that sorrow and submission which are most powerful when accompanied by innocence, and when meekly assumed, to pacify rather than to convince.  A tear started to her eye, and with a voice melted into unaffected tenderness, she addressed him, but he scarcely gave her time to speak.

“No, avourneen, no, I won’t say what I was goin’ to mintion.  I won’t indeed, Ellish, dear; an’ forgive me for woundin’ your feelin’s alanna dhas. (* My pretty child.) Hell resave her an’ her farm!  I dunna what put her into my head at all; but I thought you wor jokin’ me about my eyes:  an’ sure if you war, acushla, that’s no rason that I’d not allow you to do that an’ more wid your own Pether.  Give me a slewsther, (* a kiss of fondness) agrah—­a sweet one, now!”

He then laid his mouth to hers, and immediately a sound, nearly resembling a pistol-shot, was heard through every part of the house.  It was, in fact, a kiss upon a scale of such magnitude, that the Emperor of Morocco might not blush to be charged with it.  A reconciliation took place, and in due time it was determined that Peter, as he understood poteen, should open a shebeen house.  The moment this resolution was made, the wife kept coaxing him, until he took a small house at the cross-roads before alluded to, where, in the course of a short time, he was established, if not in his own line, yet in a mode of life approximating to it as nearly as the inclination of Ellish would permit.  The cabin which they occupied had a kitchen in the middle, and a room at each end of it, in one of which was their own humble chaff bed, with its blue quilted drugget cover; in the other stood a couple of small tables, some stools, a short form, and one chair, being a present from his father-in-law.  These constituted Peter’s whole establishment, so far +as it defied the gauger.  To this we must add! a five-gallon keg of spirits hid in the garden, and a roll of smuggled tobacco.  From the former he bottled, over night, as much as was usually drank the following day; and from the tobacco, which was also kept under ground, he cut, with the same caution, as much as to-morrow’s exigencies might require.  This he kept in his coat-pocket, a place where the gauger would never think of searching for it, divided into halfpenny and pennyworths, ounces or half-ounces, according as it might be required; and as he had it without duty, the liberal spirit in which he dealt it out to his neighbors soon brought him a large increase of custom.