pecially if I could not conceive how or
what it was, which is my case at this present speaking." And as the
spruce glover spoke, he fixed his eyes upon Phoebe's ragged gloves. She
drew them up in vain; and then said, with her natural simplicity and
gentleness, "You have not done anything to offend me, Mr. O'Neill; but
you are some way or other displeasing to my father and mother, and they
have forbid me to wear the Limerick gloves."

"And sure Miss Hill would not be after changing her opinion of her humble
servant for no reason in life but because her father and mother, who have
taken a prejudice against him, are a little contrary."

"No," replied Phoebe; "I should not change my opinion without any reason;
but I have not yet had time to fix my opinion of you, Mr. O'Neill."

"To let you know a piece of my mind, then, my dear Miss Hill," resumed
he, "the more contrary they are, the more pride and joy it would give me
to win and wear you, in spite of 'em all; and if without a farthing in
your pocket, so much the more I should rejoice in the opportunity of
proving to your dear self, and all else whom it may consarn, that Brian
O'Neill is no fortune-hunter, and scorns them that are so narrow-minded
as to think that no other kind of cattle but them there fortune-hunters
can come out of all Ireland. So, my dear Phoebe, now we understand one
another, I hope you will not be paining my eyes any longer with the sight
of these odious brown bags, which are not fit to be worn by any Christian
arms, to say nothing of Miss Hill's, which are the handsomest, without
any compliment, that ever I saw, and, to my mind, would become a pair of
Limerick gloves beyond anything: and I expect she'll show her generosity
and proper spirit by putting them on immediately."

"You expect, sir!" repeated Miss Hill, with a look of more indignation
than her gentle countenance had ever before been seen to assume.
"Expect!" "If he had said hope," thought she, "it would have been
another thing: but expect! what right has he to expect?"

Now Miss Hill, unfortunately, was not sufficiently acquainted with the
Irish idiom to know that to expect, in Ireland, is the same thing as to
hope in England; and, when her Irish admirer said "I expect," he meant
only, in plain English, "I hope." But thus it is that a poor Irishman,
often, for want of understanding the niceties of the English language,
says the rudest when he means to say the civillest things imaginab