yoursilf, Mrs. O'Kelly.

_Mrs. O'K_.--Conn niver did an honest day's work in his life--but
dhrinkin' and fishin', an' shootin', an' sportin', and love-makin'.

_Moya_.--Sure, that's how the quality pass their lives.

_Mrs. O'K_.--That's it. A poor man that sports the sowl of a
gintleman is called a blackguard.

(_At this moment Conn appears in the doorway_.)

_Conn_.--(_At left_.) Some one is talkin' about me! Ah, Moya,
Darlin', come here. (_Business as if he reached out his hands to Moya as
he comes forward to meet her, and passes her over to his left so he seems
to stand in center between Moya on left and Mrs. O'Kelly on right_.)
Was the old Mother thryin' to make little o' me? Don't you belave a word
that comes out o' her! She's jealous o' me. (_Laughing as he shakes his
finger at his mother_.) Yes, ye are! You're chokin' wid it this very
minute! Oh, Moya darlin', she's jealous to see my two arms about ye. But
she's proud o' me. Oh, she's proud o' me as an old him that's got a duck
for a chicken. Howld your whist now Mother! Wipe your mouth and give me a
kiss.

_Mrs. O'K_.--Oh, Conn, what have you been afther? The polls have been
in the cabin today about ye. They say you stole Squire Foley's horse.

_Conn_.--Stole his horse! Sure the baste is safe and sound in his
paddock this minute.

_Mrs. O'K_.--But he says you stole it for the day to go huntin'?

_Conn_.--Well, here's a purty thing, for a horse to run away wid a
man's characther like this! Oh, Wurra! may I never die in sin, but this
was the way of it. I was standin' by owld Foley's gate, whin I heard the
cry of the hounds coming across the tail of the bog, an' there they wor,
my dear, spread out like the tail of a paycock, an' the finest dog fox ye
ever seen a sailin' ahead of thim up the boreen, and right across the
churchyard. It was enough to raise the inhabitints out of the ground!
Well, as I looked, who should come and put her head over the gate besoide
me but the Squire's brown mare, small blame to her. Divil a word I said to
her, nor she to me, for the hounds had lost their scent, we knew by their
yelp and whine as they hunted among the gravestones. When, whist! the fox
went by us. I leapt upon the gate, an' gave a shriek of a view-halloo to
the whip; in a minute the pack caught the scent again, an' the whole field
came roaring past.

The mare lost her head entoirely and tore at the gate. "Stop," says I, "ye
divil!" an' I slipt a taste of a ro