n conversation with Jemmy Kelly," asked Bryan, jocularly,
alluding to her supposed admirer, "that you perform your own devotions,
Miss Hanna?"

"Hanna, achora," said the father, "I think you're playin' the second
fiddle there--ha! ha! ha!"

The laugh was now general against Hanna, who laughed as loudly, however,
as any of them.

"Throth, Kathleen," she exclaimed, "you're not worth knot's o' straws
or you'd help me against this fellow here; have you nothing," she
proceeded, addressing Bryan, and nodding towards her sister, "to say
to her? Is everything to fall on my poor shoulders? Come, now," with
another nod in the same direction, "she desarves it for not assistin'
me. Who does she say her devotions with?"

"Hem--a--is it Kathleen you mane?" he inquired, with rather an
embarrassed look.

"Not at all," she replied ironically, "but my mother there--ha! ha! ha!
Come, now, we're waitin' for you."

"Come, now?" he repeated, purposely misunderstanding her--"oh, begad,
that's a fair challenge;" and he accordingly rose to approach her with
the felonious intent of getting a kiss; but Hanna started from her wheel
and ran out of the house to avoid him.

"Throth, you're a madcap, Hanna," exclaimed her mother, placidly--"an
antick crather, dear knows--her heart's in her mouth every minute of
the day; an' if she gets through the world wid it always as light, poor
girl, it'll be well for her."

"Kathleen, will you get me a towel or praskeen of some sort to wipe my
face wid," said her father, looking about for the article he wanted.

"I left one," she replied, "on the back of your chair--an' there it is,
sure."

"Ay, achora, it's you that laves nothing undone that ought to be done;
an' so it is here, sure enough."

"Why, then, Gerald," asked Tom M'Mahon, "in the name o' wonder what
makes you stick to the meal instead o' the soap when you're washin'
yourself?"

"Throth, an' I ever will, Tom, an' for a good raison--becaise it's best
for the complexion."

The unconscious simplicity with which Cavanagh uttered this occasioned
loud laughter, from which Kathleen herself was unable to refrain.

"By the piper, Gerald," said M'Mahon, "that's the best thing I h'ard
this month o' Sundays. Why, it would be enough for one o' your daughters
to talk about complexion. Maybe you paint too--ha! ha! ha!"

Hanna now put in her head, and asked "what is the fun?" but immediately
added, "Kathleen, here's a message for you."

"For me!"