e, "I believe you are now nearly as badly
off as you can be; your husband's past hope, and you are as low as a
human bein' ever was. I'm now satisfied; you refused to marry me--you
made a May-game of me--a laughin' stock of me, and your father tould my
father that I had legs like reapin' hooks! Now, from the day you refused
to marry me, I swore I'd never die till I'd have my revinge, and I have
it; who has the laugh now, Margaret Murray?"

"You say," she replied calmly, "that I am as low as a human bein' can
be, but that's false, Toal Finnigan, for I thank God I have committed no
crime, and my name is pure and good, which is more than any one can say
for you; begone from my place."

"I will," he replied, "but before I go jist let me tell you, that I have
the satisfaction to know that, if I'm not much mistaken, it was I that
was the principal means of leavin' you as you are, and your respectable
husband as he is; so my blessin' be wid you, an that's more than your
father left you. Raipin' hooks, indeed!"

The little vile Brownie then disappeared.

Margaret, the moment he was gone, immediately turned round, and going to
her knees, leaned, with her half-cold infant still in her arms, against
a creaking chair, and prayed with as much earnestness as a distracted
heart permitted her. The little ones, at her desire, also knelt, and in
a few minutes afterwards, when her drunken husband came home, he found
his miserable family, grouped as they were in their misery, worshipping
God in their own simple and touching manner. His entrance disturbed
them, for Margaret knew she must go through the usual ordeal to which
his nightly return was certain to expose her.

"I want something to ait," said he.

"Art, dear," she replied--and this was the worst word she ever uttered
against him--"Art, dear, I have nothing for you till by an' by; but I
will then."

"Have you any money?"

"Money, Art! oh, where would I get it? If I had money I wouldn't be
without something' for you to eat, or the childre here that tasted
nothin' since airly this mornin'."

"Ah, you're a cursed useless wife," he replied, "you brought nothin' but
bad luck to me an' them; but how could you bring anything else, when you
didn't get your father's blessin'."

"But, Art, don't you remember," she said meekly in reply, "you surely
can't forget for whose sake I lost it."

"Well, he's fizzin' now, the hard-hearted ould scoundrel, for keepin'
it from you; he forgot