elike they're not so much off the
common if you'd a thrifle more exparience of them; there's nothin' to
match that for evenin' people. Bedad, now, there's some people _I_ know
so well that I can scarce tell the one from the other."

Lisconnel, however, generally declined to fall in with Ody's
philosophical views, and the Patmans, whether suspected of excessive
cuteness or folly, remained persistently unpopular. There was only one
exception to this rule. The widow M'Gurk has a certain fibre of
perversity in her which sometimes twists itself round unlikely objects,
for no apparent reason save that they are left clear by her neighbours,
and this peculiarity renders her prone upon occasion to undertake the
part of Devil's Advocate. When, therefore, she had once delivered
herself of the opinion that the newcomers were "very dacint folks," she
did not feel called upon to abandon it because it stood alone. As
grounds for it she commonly alleged that they were "rael hard-workin'
and industhrious," which was obviously true enough, since Mrs. Patman
and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with
an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours'
unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in
the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when
she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a
bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men."
As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the
child; it might happen by nature to be one of those little _crowls_ of
childer that 'ud always look hungry-like and pinin', the crathurs, if
you were able to keep feedin' them wid the best as long as the sun was
in the sky." In short, something more than talk was usually needed to
put the widow M'Gurk out of conceit with any notion she had taken up.
Perhaps the comparative aloofness of her hillside cabin helped to
maintain the Patmans at their original high level in her estimation. At
any rate they had not sunk from it by the time that they had been nearly
three months in Lisconnel, and when Mrs. Patman and her sister were on
terms of the very glummest civility with all the other women in the
place. Even towards the widow M'Gurk they were tolerant rather than
expansive. She said "they had done right enough to not be leppin' down
people's throaths."

One morning not long after Christmas, the w