“Answer!” said Margaret, feigning surprise, “what about?”

“About Mark Hanmity.”

“Well, but sure if he’s fond of me, hell have no objection to wait.”

“Ay, but if he does wait, will you have him?”

“I didn’t promise that, and, at any rate, I’d not like to be a shopkeeper’s wife.”

“Why not?”

“Why, he’d be puttin’ me behind the counter, and you know I’d be too handsome for that; sure, there’s Thogue Nugent that got the handsome wife from Dublin, and of a fair, or market-day, for one that goes in to buy anything, there goes ten in to look at her.  Throth, I think he ought to put her in the windy at once, just to save trouble, and give the people room.”

“Ha, ha, ha! well, you’re the dickens of a girl, sure enough; but come, avourneen, don’t be makin’ me laugh now, but tell me what answer I’m to give Mark.”

“Tell him to go to Dublin, like Thogue; he lives in the upper part of the town, and Thogue in the lower, and then there will be a beauty in each end of it.”

“Suppose I take it into my head to lose my temper, Peggy, maybe I’d make you spake then?”

“Well, will you give me a peck o’ mail for widow Dolan?”

“No, divil a dust.”

“Sure I’ll pay you—­ha, ha, ha!”

“Sure you’ll pay me! mavrone, but it’s often you’ve said that afore, and divil a cross o’ Your coin ever we seen yet; faith, it’s you that’s heavily in my debt, when I think of all ever you promised to pay me.”

“Very well, then; no meal, no answer.”

“And will you give me an answer if I give you the meal?”

“Honor bright, didn’t I say it.”

“Go an’ get it yourself then, an’ see now, don’t do as you always do, take double what you’re allowed.”

Margiret, in direct violation of this paternal injunction, did most unquestionably take near twice the stipulated quantity for the widow, and, in order that there might be no countermand on the part of her father, as sometimes happened, she sent it off with one of the servants by a back way, so that he had no opportunity of seeing how far her charity had carried her beyond the spirit and letter of her instructions.

“Well,” said he, when she returned, “now for the answer; and before you give it, think of the comfort you’ll have with him—­how fine and nicely furnished his house is—­he has carpets upon the rooms, ay, an’ upon my sounds, on the very stairs itself! faix it’s you that will be in state.  Now, acushla, let us hear your answer.”

“It’s very short, father; I won’t have him.”

“Won’t have him! and in the name of all that’s unbiddable and undutiful, who will you have, if one may ax that, or do you intend, to have any one at all, or not?”

“Let me see,” she said, putting the side of her forefinger to her lips, “what day is this?  Thursday.  Well, then, on this day month, father, I’ll tell my mother who I’ll have, or, at any rate, who I’d wish to have; but, in the mean time, nobody need ask me anything further about it till then, for I won’t give any other information on the subject.”