e that morning.

'There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald,' said his
Reverence, looking mighty glum. 'And is it a fishy woman you'd marry?
The Lord preserve us! Send the scaly creature home to her own people;
that's my advice to you, wherever she came from.'

Dick had the _cohuleen driuth_ in his hand, and was about to give it
back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a
moment, and then says he, 'Please your Reverence, she's a king's
daughter.'

'If she was the daughter of fifty kings,' said Father Fitzgibbon, 'I
tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish.'

'Please your Reverence,' said Dick again, in an undertone, 'she is as
mild and as beautiful as the moon.'

'If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all
put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,' said the Priest, stamping
his right foot, 'you can't marry her, she being a fish.'

'But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,
and I'm a made man if I marry her; and,' said Dick, looking up slily,
'I can make it worth any one's while to do the job.'

'Oh! that alters the case entirely,' replied the Priest; 'why there's
some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this before?
marry her by all means, if she was ten times a fish. Money, you know,
is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the
hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the pains in
counselling you that I have done.'

So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like
any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each
other. Everything prospered with Dick--he was at the sunny side of the
world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in
the greatest contentment.

It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,
how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed
the children; for, at the end of three years there were as many young
Fitzgeralds--two boys and a girl.

In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have been to the end
of his days if he had only had the sense to take care of what he had
got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to
do that.

One day, when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife
minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to
do without disturbing his fishing-tackle.

Dick was no s