A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a stone in the eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home for the quieter protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and one day my sister and myself knocked at Mrs. King’s door to inquire about the state of the injured organ.

“Troth, miss, it’s very bad,” said Mrs. King.

“What do you do for it, Mrs. King?”

“Do?” said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her apron to her overflowing eyes—­“Do?” she continued in a broken voice.  “I’ve been crying these three days.”

“But what do you do to make it better?”

Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied herself to the setting forth of her humane exertions:  “In comes Mistress Magovern, an’, ‘Mrs. King,’ sez she, ‘put rar bafesteak to the choild’s oye;’ an’ that minit, ma’am, the rar bafesteak wint to it.  Thin comes Mrs. Haley.  ‘Is it rar bafesteak ye’d be putting to it, Mrs. King?’ sez she.  ’Biling clothes, Mrs. King,’ sez she.  That minit, ma’am, the rar bafesteak come afif an’ the biling clothes wint to it.  In comes Mrs. Quinlan.  ’Will ye be destryin’ the choild’s oye intirely, Mrs. King?’ sez she.  ’Cowld ice, Mrs. King.’  An’ that minit, ma’am, the biling clothes come aff an’ the cowld ice wint to it.  Oh, I do be doin’ iverything anybody do tell me.”

It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for the day and taken the door-key with her.  “Thim lads is big enough to take care of thimsilves,” she would remark, though “the lads” were not yet capable of coherent speech.  No doubt they wandered into some neighbor’s at meal-time and received a willingly-given potato or a drink of milk.  They seemed happy enough, and their funny, ugly little faces were defaced by no tears.  They grew in time old enough to explain their position to inquiring passers-by and to pick up and eat an amazing quantity of green apples.  A lady passing one day stopped and remonstrated with one of them.  “Barney,” she said, “it will make you ill if you eat those green apples.”—­“I do be always atin’ of them, ma’am,” replied Barney, stolidly.

Perhaps it may have been the green apples, but from whatever cause Barney fell ill, and all that the doctor prescribed made him no better.  “It’s no matther, stir,” said Mrs. Gunning one morning:  “yer needn’t come ag’in.  I’ll just go an’ ask Mrs. ------” (my mother).

The next morning the doctor, meeting my mother, laughingly remarked that it was very plain that they couldn’t practise in the same district:  he had just met Mrs. Gunning, who informed him that “what Mrs. ------ gave her the night befoor done the choild a power of good.”

The day preceding our departure from the place my sister and I passed through The Lane, and received the most amiable farewells, accompanied with blessings, and even tears.  The figure I best remember is that of Mrs. Regan, who, bursting out from her doorway, stood in our path, and, dissolving in tears, sobbed out, “Faith, I’m sorry yez be goin’.  I don’t know what I’ll do at all widout yez;” and, seizing my sister’s hand, gave her this unique recommendation:  “Ye were always passing by mannerly—­niver sassy nor impidint, nor nothing.”