on't think o' marryin'. Sure you have good means to
keep a wife, and rear a family now; an' of coorse we all wonder that you
don't."

"Indeed, to tell you the truth, Art, I don't know myself what's the
raison of it--the only wife I think of is my business; but any way, if
you was to see the patthern of married life there is undher the roof
wid me, you'd not be much in consate wid marriage yourself, if you war a
bachelor."

"Why," inquired the other, "don't they agree?"

"Ay do they, so well that they get sometimes into very close an' lovin'
grips togather; if ever there was a scald alive she's one o' them, an'
him that was wanst so careless and aisey-tempered, she has now made him
as bad as herself--has trained him regularly until he has a tongue that
would face a ridgment. Tut, sure divil a week that they don't flake one
another, an' half my time's, taken up reddin' them."

"Did you ever happen to get the reddin' blow? eh? ha, ha, ha!"

"No, not yet; but the truth is, Art, that an ill-tongued wife has driven
many a husband to ruin, an' only that I'm there to pay attention to the
business, he'd be a poor drunken beggarman long ago, an' all owin' to
her vile temper."

"Does she dhrink?"

"No, sorra drop--this wickedness all comes natural to her; she wouldn't
be aisy out of hot wather, and poor Jack's parboiled in it every day in
the year."

"Well, it's I that have got the treasure, Frank; from the day that I
first saw her face till the minute we're spakin' in, I never knew her
temper to turn--always the same sweet word, the same flow of spirits,
and the same light laugh; her love an' affection for me an' the childher
there couldn't be language found for. Come, throth we'll drink her
health in another tumbler, and a speedy uprise to her, asthore machree
that she is, an' when I think of how she set every one of her people at
defiance, and took her lot wid myself so nobly, my heart burns wid love
for her, ay, I feel my very heart burnin' widin me."

Two tumblers were again mixed, and Margaret's health was drunk.

"Here's her health," said Art, "may God grant her long life and
happiness!"

"Amen!" responded Frank, "an' may He grant that she'll never know a
sorrowful heart!"

Art laid down his tumbler, and covered his eyes with his hands for a
minute or two.

"I'm not ashamed, Frank," said he, "I'm not a bit ashamed of these
tears--she desarves them--where is her aiquil? oh, where is her
aiquil? It's she her