er?"

"And he's to make me steward; begad, and if I don't make a good one,
I'll make an honest one. Faith, at all events, Ellen, we'll be in a
condition to provide for the childre', plaise God."

Ellen gave him a blushing look of reproach, and desired him to keep a
proper tongue in his head.

"But what will we do with the five hundred, Ellen, that the squire and
Mr. Reilly made up between them?"

"We'll consult Mr. Reilly about it," she replied, "and no doubt but
he'll enable us to lay it out to the best advantage. Now, Fergus dear,
I must go," she added; "you know she can't bear me even now to be any
length of time away from her. Here's God bless them both, and continue
them in the happiness they now enjoy."

"Amen," replied Fergus, "and here's God bless ourselves, and make us
more lovin' to one another every day we rise; and here's to take a
foretaste of it now, you thief."

Some slight resistance, followed by certain smacking sounds, closed the
interview; for Ellen, having started to her feet, threw on her cloak and
bonnet, and hurried out of the room, giving back, however, a laughing
look at Fergus as she escaped.

In a few months afterwards they were married, and lived with the old man
until he became a grandfather to two children, the eldest a boy, and
the second a girl. Upon the same day of their marriage their humble but
faithful friends were also united; so that there was a double wedding.
The ceremony, in the case of Reilly and his _Cooleen Bawn_, was
performed by the Reverend Mr. Brown first, and the parish priest
afterwards; Mr. Strong, who had been for several years conjoined to Mrs.
Smellpriest, having been rejected by both parties as the officiating
clergyman upon the occasion, although the lovely bride was certainly his
parishioner. Age and time, however, told upon the old man; and at the
expiration of three years they laid him, with many tears, in the grave
of his fathers. Soon after this Reilly and his wife, accompanied by
Fergus and Ellen--for the _Cooleen Bawn_ would not be separated from
the latter--removed to the Continent, where they had a numerous family,
principally of sons; and we need not tell our learned readers, at least,
that those young men distinguished not only themselves, but their name,
by acts of the most brilliant courage in continental warfare. And so,
gentle reader, ends the troubled history of Willy Reilly and his own
_Cooleen Bawn_.

End of the Project Gutenberg