“Bridget Malone, are you not ashamed to have such a disorderly house as this?  Why don’t you sweep the floor and put things in place?”

“Och! hinny, and how can I swape the floor without a brum?” said Bridget, looking up in some dismay.

“Didn’t my father order James to give you a broom whenever you want one?  Here Pat”, said she, to a ragged urchin about her own age, who was tumbling about over the floor with a little dirty-faced baby, “here, take this jack-knife and go down to the river by Mrs. Campbell’s new house and cut some hemlock boughs.  Be quick, and bring them back as fast as you can”.  Pat started at once.

Adele then deliberately took off her bonnet and shawl, rolled them up into as small a package as she could make, and placed them on the nearest approximation to a clean spot that could be found.  Then she stooped down, took the baby from the floor and handed him to his mother.

Here, Bridget, take Johnny, wash his face and put him on a clean dress.  I know he has another dress and it ought to be clean”.

“Yes.  He’s got one you gave him, Miss Ady, but it aint clane at all.  Shure it’s time to wash I’m wanting, it is”.

“Now, don’t tell me, Bridget, that you have not time to wash your children’s clothes and keep them decent.  You need not spend so many hours smoking your pipe over the ashes”.

“You wouldn’t deprive a poor cratur of all the comfort she has in the world, would ye, hinny?”

“You ought to take comfort in keeping your house and children clean, Bridget”.

In the meanwhile, Bridget had washed Johnny’s face, and there being no clean dress ready for the little fellow, Adele said, “Come, Bridget, put on a kettle of water, pick up your clothes, and do your washing”.

“Shure, and I will, if ye say so, Miss Ady”.

The poor shiftless thing having placed the baby on the floor again, began to stir about and make ready.

Adele sat poking and turning over the chubby little Johnny with her foot.

At last, Pat appeared with a moderate quantity of hemlock boughs, which Adele told him to throw upon the floor,—­then to hand her the knife and sit down by her side and learn to make a broom.  She selected, clipped, and laid together the boughs, until she had made quite a pile; sent Pat for a strong piece of twine and an old broom handle and then secured the boughs firmly upon it.

“Now Pat”, she said, “here is a nice, new jack-knife.  If you will promise me that you will cut boughs and make your mother two new brooms, just like this, every week, the knife shall be yours”.

Pat, with eyes that stood out an unmentionable distance, and mouth stretched from ear to ear, promised, and Adele proceeded vigorously to sweep the apartment.  In the course of half an hour, the room wore a wholly different aspect.

“And who tould the like of ye, how to make a brum like that, hinny?” said Bridget, looking on in admiration of her skill.