her maternal discretion in prevailing upon Mr. Hill to forbid her
daughter Phoebe to wear the Limerick gloves.

In the meantime, Phoebe walked pensively homewards, endeavouring to
discover why her father should take a mortal dislike to a man at first
sight, merely because he was an Irishman: and why her mother had talked
so much of the great dog which had been lost last year out of the tan-
yard; and of the hole under the foundation of the cathedral! "What has
all this to do with my Limerick gloves?" thought she. The more she
thought, the less connection she could perceive between these things: for
as she had not taken a dislike to Mr. Brian O'Neill at first sight,
because he was an Irishman, she could not think it quite reasonable to
suspect him of making away with her father's dog, nor yet of a design to
blow up Hereford Cathedral. As she was pondering upon these matters, she
came within sight of the ruins of a poor woman's house, which a few
months before this time had been burnt down. She recollected that her
first acquaintance with her lover began at the time of this fire; and she
thought that the courage and humanity he showed, in exerting himself to
save this unfortunate woman and her children, justified her notion of the
possibility that an Irishman might be a good man.

The name of the poor woman whose house had been burnt down was Smith: she
was a widow, and she now lived at the extremity of a narrow lane in a
wretched habitation. Why Phoebe thought of her with more concern than
usual at this instant we need not examine, but she did; and, reproaching
herself for having neglected it for some weeks past, she resolved to go
directly to see the widow Smith, and to give her a crown which she had
long had in her pocket, with which she had intended to have bought play
tickets.

It happened that the first person she saw in the poor widow's kitchen was
the identical Mr. O'Neill. "I did not expect to see anybody here but
you, Mrs. Smith," said Phoebe, blushing.

"So much the greater the pleasure of the meeting; to me, I mean, Miss
Hill," said O'Neill, rising, and putting down a little boy, with whom he
had been playing. Phoebe went on talking to the poor woman; and, after
slipping the crown into her hand, said she would call again. O'Neill,
surprised at the change in her manner, followed her when she left the
house, and said, "It would be a great misfortune to me to have done
anything to offend Miss Hill, es