usha, go
out o' this, Ranger, you thief--oh, God forgive me! what am I sayin'?
sure the poor dog is as glad as the best of us--arrah, thin, look at the
affectionate crathur, a'most beside himself! Dora, avillish, give him
the could stirabout that's in the skillet, jist for his affection, the
crathur. Here, Ranger--Ranger, I say--oh no, sorra one's in the house
now but yourself, Tom. Well, an' there was nothing wrong wid you?"

"Nothin', Nancy, thanks be to the Almighty--down, poor fellow--there
now, Ranger--och, behave, you foolish dog--musha, see this!"

"Throth, Tom," continued his loving wife, "let what will happen, it's
the last journey ever we'll let you take from us. Ever an' ever, there
we wor thinkin' an' thinkin' a thousand things about you. At one time
that something happened you; then that you fell sick an' had none but
strangers about you. Throth we won't; let what will happen, you must
stay wid vis."

"Indeed an' I never knew how I loved the place, an' you all, till I
went; but, thank God, I hope it's the last journey ever I'll have to
take from either you or it."

"Shibby, run down to--or do you, Dora, go, you're the souplest--to Paddy
Mullen's and Jemmy Kelly's, and the rest of the neighbors, an' tell them
to come up, that your father's home. Run now, acushla, an' if you fall
don't wait to rise; an' Shibby, darlin', do you whang down a lot o' that
bacon into rashers, 'your father must be at death's door wid hunger;
but wasn't it well that I thought of having the whiskey in, for you see
afther Thursday last we didn't know what minute you'd dhrop in on us,
Tom, an' I said it was best to be prepared. Give Peety a chair, the
crature; come forrid, Peety, an' take a sate; an' how are you? an' how
is the girsha wid you, an' where is she?"

To these questions, thus rapidly put, Peety returned suitable answers;
but indeed Mrs. M'Mahon did not wait to listen to them, having gone to
another room to produce the whisky she had provided for the occasion.

"Here," she said, reappearing with a huge bottle in one hand and a glass
in the other, "a sip o' the right sort will help you afther your long
journey; you must be tired, be coorse, so take this."

"Aisy, Bridget," exclaimed her husband, "don't fill it; you'll make me
hearty." (* tipsy)

"Throth an' I will fill it," she replied, "ay, an' put a heap on it.
There now, finish that bumper."

The old man, with a smiling and happy face, received the glass, and
ta