“Ho, Jemmy,” said the mother, addressing her husband, “only put your ears to this! Ho, dher manim, this is that skamin’ piece of feasthealagh (* nonesense) they call grah (love).  Ho, by my sowl, it shows what moseys they is to think that—­what’s this you call it?—­low-lov-loaf, or whatsomever the devil it is, has to do wid makin’ a young couple man and wife.  Didn’t I hate the ground you stud on when I was married upon you? but I had the _airighid_.  Ho, faix, I had the shiners.”

“Divil a word o’ lie in that, Madjey, asthore.  You had the money, an’ I got it, and wern’t we as happy, or ten times happier, than if we had married for love?”

“To be sartin we am; an’ isn’t we more unhappier now, nor if we had got married for loaf, glory be to godness!”

“Father,” said Margaret, anxious to put an end to this ludicrous debate, “this is the only man I will ever marry.”

“And by Him that made me,” said her father, “you will never have my consent to that marriage, nor my blessin’.”

“Art,” said she, “not one word.  Here, in the presence of my father and mother, and in the presence of God himself, I say I will be your wife, and only yours.”

“And,” said her father, “see whether a blessin’ will attend a marriage where a child goes against the will of her parents.”

“I’m of age now to think and act for myself, father; an’ you know this is the first thing I ever disobeyed you in, an’ I hope it ’ill be the last.  Am I goin’ to marry one that’s discreditable to have connected with our family?  So far from that, it is the credit that is comin’ to us.  Is a respectable young man, without spot or stain on his name, with the good-will of all that know him, and a good trade—­is such a person, father, so very high above us?  Is one who has the blood of the great Fermanagh Maguires in his veins not good enough for your daughter, because you happen to have a few bits of metal that he has not?  Father, you will give us your consent an’ your blessin’ too; but remember that whether you do, or whether you don’t, I’ll not break my vow; I’ll marry him.”

“Margaret,” said the father, in a calm, collected voice, “put both consent and blessin’ out of the question; you will never have either from me.”

“Ho dher a Ihora heena,” exclaimed the mother, “I’m the boy for one that will see the buckle crossed against them, or I’d die every day this twelve months upon the top and tail o’ Knockmany, through wind an’ weather.  You darlin’ scoundrel,” she proceeded, addressing Art, in what she intended to be violent abuse—­“God condemn your sowl to happiness, is I or am my husband to be whillebelewin’ on your loaf?  Eh, answer us that, if you’re not able, like a man, as you is?”

Margaret, whose humor and sense of the ludicrous were exceedingly strong, having seldom heard her mother so excited before, gave one arch look at Art, who, on the contrary, felt perfectly confounded at the woman’s language, and in that look there was a kind of humorous entreaty that he would depart.  She nodded towards the door, and Art, having shook hands with her, said—­