how or what it was, which is my case at this present speaking.”  And as the spruce glover spoke, he fixed his eyes upon Phoebe’s ragged gloves.  She drew them up in vain; and then said, with her natural simplicity and gentleness, “You have not done anything to offend me, Mr. O’Neill; but you are some way or other displeasing to my father and mother, and they have forbid me to wear the Limerick gloves.”

“And sure Miss Hill would not be after changing her opinion of her humble servant for no reason in life but because her father and mother, who have taken a prejudice against him, are a little contrary.”

“No,” replied Phoebe; “I should not change my opinion without any reason; but I have not yet had time to fix my opinion of you, Mr. O’Neill.”

“To let you know a piece of my mind, then, my dear Miss Hill,” resumed he, “the more contrary they are, the more pride and joy it would give me to win and wear you, in spite of ’em all; and if without a farthing in your pocket, so much the more I should rejoice in the opportunity of proving to your dear self, and all else whom it may consarn, that Brian O’Neill is no fortune-hunter, and scorns them that are so narrow-minded as to think that no other kind of cattle but them there fortune-hunters can come out of all Ireland.  So, my dear Phoebe, now we understand one another, I hope you will not be paining my eyes any longer with the sight of these odious brown bags, which are not fit to be worn by any Christian arms, to say nothing of Miss Hill’s, which are the handsomest, without any compliment, that ever I saw, and, to my mind, would become a pair of Limerick gloves beyond anything:  and I expect she’ll show her generosity and proper spirit by putting them on immediately.”

“You expect, sir!” repeated Miss Hill, with a look of more indignation than her gentle countenance had ever before been seen to assume.  “Expect!” “If he had said hope,” thought she, “it would have been another thing:  but expect! what right has he to expect?”

Now Miss Hill, unfortunately, was not sufficiently acquainted with the Irish idiom to know that to expect, in Ireland, is the same thing as to hope in England; and, when her Irish admirer said “I expect,” he meant only, in plain English, “I hope.”  But thus it is that a poor Irishman, often, for want of understanding the niceties of the English language, says the rudest when he means to say the civillest things imaginable.

Miss Hill’s feelings were so much hurt by this unlucky “I expect” that the whole of his speech, which had before made some favourable impression upon her, now lost its effect:  and she replied with proper spirit, as she thought, “You expect a great deal too much, Mr. O’Neill; and more than ever I gave you reason to do.  It would be neither pleasure nor pride to me to be won and worn, as you were pleased to say, in spite of them all; and to be thrown, without a farthing in my pocket, upon the protection of one who expects so much at first setting out.—­So I assure you, sir, whatever you may expect, I shall not put on the Limerick gloves.”