n place you've pitched upon for
them."

"Well, now," replied Hanlon, "I'll be biddin' you good-night; but before
you go, promise to get me that tobaccy-box you found; it's the least you
may give it to me for Peggy Murray's handkerchy."

"Hut," returned Sally, "it's not worth a thraneen; you couldn't use it
even if you had it; sure it's both rusty and broken."

"No matther for that," he replied; "I want to play a thrick on Peggy
Murray wid it, so as to have a good laugh against her--the pair of
us--you wid the handkerchy, and me wid the tobaccy-box."

"Very well," she replied. "Ha! ha! ha!--that'll be great. At any rate,
I've a crow to pluck wid the same Peggy Murray. Oh, never you fear, you
must have it; the minnit I get my hands on it, I'll secure it for you."
After a few words more of idle chat they separated; he to his master's
house, which was a considerable distance off; and this extraordinary
creature--unconscious of the terrors and other weaknesses that render
her sex at once so dependent on and so dear to man--full only of delight
at the expected glee of the wake--to the house of death where it was
held.

In the country parts of Ireland it is not unusual for those who come to
a wake-house from a distance, to remain there until the funeral takes
place: and this also is frequently the case with the nearest door
neighbors. There is generally a solemn hospitality observed on the
occasion, of which the two classes I mention partake. Sally's absence,
therefore, on that night, or for the greater portion of the next day,
excited neither alarm nor surprise at home. On entering their miserable
sheiling, she found her father, who had just returned, and her
step-mother in high words; the cause of which, she soon learned, had
originated in his account of the interview between young Dalton and Mave
Sullivan, together with its unpleasant consequences to himself.

"What else could you expect," said his wife, "but what you got? You're
ever an' always too ready wid your divil's grin an' your black prophecy
to thim you don't like. I wondher you're not afeard that some of them
might come back to yourself, an' fall upon your own head. If ever a man
tempted Providence you do."

"Ah, dear me!" he exclaimed, with a derisive sneer, rendered doubly
repulsive by his own hideous and disfigured face, "how pious we are!
Providence, indeed! Much I care about Providence, you hardened jade, or
you aither, whatever puts the word into you