a
black-whiskered man in his best clothes, with each hand tightly grasping
a small, fat, wrigglesome child. And the three were Matthew, Tom, and
Minnie Wogan. On catching sight of Mad Bell, he made the driver pull up.

"Well, ma'am," he called to her, "so you're after gettin' home. Bedad
it's the fine long step you've took th'ould donkey; one while he'd be
doin' it. And you're about gettin' in the few things? Very welcome she
is to the whole of them," he continued to Big Anne, who had now emerged.
"And begorrah nobody else had a better right to any trifle might be
saved out of it. She'll ha' tould you, ma'am, the way the place was set
on fire on me last night--some little divil of a spalpeen playin' wid
matches it seems. But anyhow, there it was in blazes, and me galloppin'
home like a deminted cow, consaitin' these two imps of the mischief here
would be smotherin' inside it. And, troth, if herself over there hadn't
them fetched out safe into the yard, when it was as much as your life
was worth to put your head in at the door, for the stiflin' of the
smoke. I dunno how she conthrived it. Maybe the crathur isn't altogether
over sinsible," he said in a confidential tone; "but if she'd had all
the wit ever was thought of, she couldn't ha' done better be the
childer. So it's kindly welcome she is to the bits of furniture, and the
ould baste. And dhrivin' on we must be. Good mornin' to yous all."

Mad Bell listened to this praise with the same equanimity as to Big
Anne's threats and reproaches. But when the car had trotted on, she came
up to her, saying just as before, "Gimme a hand wid liftin' in thim
tables;" and Matthew Wogan, jogging down the long lane, may have caught
the last glimpse of one of them as it vanished in at the doorway.

Thus it was that Mad Bell came to be domiciled with Big Anne and the
Dummy in the pauses between her wanderings. The arrangement seemed
equitable in view of her substantial contribution to the plenishing of
the house. The donkey-cart, likewise, was found very serviceable,
enabling them to turn a penny occasionally by fetching and carrying. And
the coalition worked well upon the whole. But after a few years of such
prosperity that they were seldom without a bit of food in the house, and
sometimes had bacon on Sunday, things took a turn for the worse. Old Ned
died under the burden of his many years, and a sort of murrain among the
fowl cut off several promising pullets in the heyday of thei