“What’s this?” inquired Sarah, seating; herself on a three legged stool, “the ould work, is it? bell-cat, bell-dog.  Ah, you’re a blessed pair an’ a purty pair, too; you, wid your swelled face an’ blinkin’ eye.  Arrah, what dacent man gave you that?  An’ you,” she added, turning to her step-mother, “wid your cheeks poulticed, an’ your eye blinkin’ on the other side—­what a pair o’ beauties you are, ha! ha! ha!  I wouldn’t be surprised if the divil an’ his mother fell in consate wid you both!—­ha! ha!”

“Is that your manners, afther spendin’ the night away wid yourself?” asked her father, angrily.  “Instead of stealin’ into the house thremblin’ wid fear, as you ought to be, you walk in wid your brazen face, ballyraggin’ us like a Hecthor.”

“Devil a taste I’m afeard,” she replied, sturdily; “I did nothin’ to be afeard or ashamed of, an’ why should I?”

“Did you see Mr. Hanlon on your travels, eh?”

“You needn’t say eh about it,” she replied, “to be sure I did; it was to meet him that I went to the dance; I have no saicrets.”

“Ah, you’ll come to a good end yet, I doubt,” said her father.

“Sure she needn’t be afeard of Providence, any how,” observed his wife.

“To the divil wid you, at all events,” he replied; “if you’re not off out o’ that to get me somethin’ for this swellin’ I’ll make it worse for you.”

“Ay, ay, I’ll go,” looking at him with peculiar bitterness, “an wid the help of the same Providence that you laugh at, I’ll take care that the same roof won’t cover the three of us long.  I’m tired of this life, and come or go what may, I’ll look to my sowl an’ lead it no longer.

“Do you mane to break our hearts?” he replied, laughing; “for sure we couldn’t do less afther her, Sally; eh, ha! ha! ha!  Before you lave us, anyhow,” he added, “go and get me some Gaiharrawan roots to bring down this swellin’; I can’t go to the Grange wid sich a face as this on me.”

“You’ll have a blacker an’ a worse one on the day of judgment,” replied Nelly, taking up an old spade as she spoke, and proceeding to look for the Casharrawan (Dandelion) roots he wanted.

When she had gone, the prophet, assuming that peculiar sweetness of manner, for which he was so remarkable when it suited his purpose, turned to his daughter, and putting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, pulled out a tress of fair hair, whose shade and silky softness were exquisitely beautiful.

“Do you see that,” said he, “isn’t that pretty?”

“Show,” she replied, and taking the tress into her hand, she looked at it.

“It is lovely; but isn’t that aquil to it?” she continued, letting loose her own of raven black and equal gloss and softness—­“what can it brag over that? eh,” and as she compared them her black eye flashed, and her cheek assumed a rich glow of pride and conscious beauty, that made her look just such a being as an old Grecian statuary would have wished to model from.