“Vick na hoiah, Phelim; do you tell me so?”

“Why man o’ Moses, is it possible you did not hear it, ma’am?”

“Oh, worra, man alive, not a syllable!  Ate the ears off of himself!  Phelim, acushla, see what it is to be hard an the poor!”

“Oh, he was ever an’ always the biggest nagar livin’, ma’am.  Ay, an’ when he was tied up, till a blessed priest ’ud be brought to maliwgue the divil out of him, he got a scythe an’ cut his own two hands off.”

“No thin, Phelim!”

“Faitha, ma’am, sure enough.  I suppose, ma’am, you hard about Biddy Duignan?”

“Who is she, Phelim?”

“Why the misfortunate crathurs a daughter of her father’s, ould Mick Duignan, of Tavenimore.”

“An’ what about her, Phehm!  What happened her?”

“Faix, ma’am, a bit of a mistake she met wid; but, anyhow, ould Harry Connolly’s to stand in the chapel nine Sundays, an’ to make three Stations to Lough Dergh for it.  Bedad, they say it’s as purty a crathur as you’d see in a day’s thravellin’.”

“Harry Connolly!  Why, I know Harry, but I never heard of Biddy Duiguan, or her father at all.  Harry Connolly!  Is it a man that’s bent over his staff for the last twenty years!  Hut, tut, Phelim, don’t say sich a thing.”

“Why, ma’am, sure he takes wid it himself; he doesn’t deny it at all, the ould sinner.”

“Oh, that I mayn’t sin, Phelim, if one knows who to thrust in this world, so they don’t.  Why the desateful ould—­hut, Phelim, I can’t give into it.”

“Faix, ma’am, no wondher; but sure when he confesses it himself!  Bedad, Mrs. Doran, I never seen you look so well.  Upon my sowl, you’d take the shine out o’ the youngest o’ thim!”

“Is it me, Phelim?  Why, you’re beside yourself.”

“Beside myself, am I?  Faith, an’ if I am, what I said’s thruth, anyhow.  I’d give more nor I’ll name, to have so red a pair of cheeks as you have.  Sowl, they’re thumpers.”

“Ha, ha, ha!  Oh, that I mayn’t sin, but that’s a good joke!  An ould woman near sixty!”

“Now, Mrs. Doran, that’s nonsense, an’ nothing else.  Near sixty!  Oh, by my purty, that’s runnin’ away wid the story entirely—­No, nor thirty.  Faith, I know them that’s not more nor five or six-an’-twenty, that ’ud be glad to borry the loan of your face for a while.  Divil a word o’ lie in that.”

“No, no, Phelim, aroon, I seen the day; but that’s past.  I remimber when the people did say I was worth lookin’ at.  Won’t you sit near the fire?  You’re in the dhraft there.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am; faith, you have the name, far an’ near, for bein’ the civilest woman alive this day.  But, upon my sowl, if you wor ten times as civil, an’ say that you’re not aquil to any young girl in the parish, I’d dispute it wid you; an’ say it was nothin’ else than a bounce.”

“Arrah, Phelim, darlin, how can you palaver me that way?  I hope your dacent father’s well, Phelim, an’ your honest mother.”