“Oh, that ‘ud be tellin’, Mr. O’Shaughnessy!  But supposin’ I am, what ought I to do?”

“That’s really a profound question, Miss Norah.  But though I cannot tell you what to do, I can tell you what I think.”

“An’ what is that, sir?”

“Why, Miss Norah, that he who is so beatified as to secure you in the matrimonial paction—­compactum it is in the larned languages—­in other words—­to condescend to your capacity—­he who is married to you will be a happy man.  There is a juvenility about your eyes, and an efflorescence of amaranthine odoriferousness about your cheeks and breath that are enough to communicate the centrifugal motion to any brain adorned with the slightest modicum of sentiment.”

“He who marries me will be a happy man!” she exclaimed, repeating these expressions, probably because they were the only words she understood.  “I hope so, Misther O’Shaughnessy.  But, sure enough, who’d expect to hear sich soft talk from the makins of a priest?  Very well, sir!  Upon my word I’ll be tellin’ Father Finnerty that you do be spakin’ up to the girls!—­Now!!”

“No, no, Miss Norah; you wouldn’t do that merely for my sayin’ that you’re the handsomest girl in the parish.  Father Finnerty himself might say as much, for it would be nothing but veracity—­nothing but truth, Miss Norah.”

“Ah! but he wouldn’t be pattin’ me on the cheek!  Be asy, Mr. O’Shaughnessy; there’s Darby Brady lookin’ at you, an’ he’ll be tellin’!”

“Where?” said Denis, starting.

The girl replied only by an arch laugh.

“Upon my classicality, Miss Norah, you’re a rogue; there’s nobody lookin’, you seraphim!”

“Then there’s a pair of us rogues, Misther Dinis.”

“No, no, Miss Norah; I was only feeling your cheek as a philosophical experiment.  Philosophers often do it, in order to make out an hypothesis.”

“Misther Dinis, if I’m not marrid till you’re a priest, won’t you say the words for me for nothing?”

“So long as you ask it wid such a brilliant smiled Miss Norah, do you think that any educated young man who has read about beauty an’ sentimentality in books, could refuse you?  But you know, Miss Norah, that the clergyman who marries a couple has always the right of kissing the bride.  Now I wouldn’t claim my right then; but it might be possible by a present compromise to—­to——.  What would you think, for instance, to give me that now?”

“To give you what?”

“Why the——­indeed it’s but a slight recompense, the—­k——­ the salutation—­the kiss.  You know what tasting the head means?”

“Faix, Misther Dinis, you’re a great rogue.  Who’d think it indeed?  Sure enough, they say smooth water runs deep!  Why one ’ud suppose butther wouldn’t melt in your mouth to look at you; an’ yet you want to be toyin’ wid the girls!  Indeed an’ faix, it’s a great shame for the likes o’ you, that’s bint on Maynooth, to be thinkin’ of coortin’ at all.  But wait!  Upon my word, I’ll have a fine story agin you, plase goodness!”