person
as Mrs. Quinlan in its first glow was somewhat marred. He was the owner
of a small cart and a mule, and those who had stones or earth to move
usually remembered to employ poor Mike. But it was on foot, as a more
inconspicuous method of eluding the watchfulness of Mrs. Quinlan, that
Mike slipped away to the neighboring village of an afternoon, and it was
on foot that I one night saw Mrs. Quinlan going over the same road with
an invincible determination in her countenance and a small birch rod in
her hand. Mrs. Quinlan was somewhat younger than her lord and master:
she had a clear, bright-blue eye, a roseate color in her little slender
face, and gray hair tidily smoothed back beneath the dainty ruffles of
her cap, about which a black ribbon was tied. She wore short petticoats
and low shoes, and as she walked briskly along she smoothed her apron
with the disengaged hand, as if, the balance of the family
respectability having so wholly fallen upon her own shoulders, she would
not disturb it by permitting a disorderly wrinkle. Half an hour later
she passed again over the road, her face turned homeward and wearing an
even greater austerity, the birch rod grasped firmly in her hand, and
her worser half preceding her with a foolish smile upon his lips, half
of concession, half of pride in the power to which he stooped.

Another of Mrs. Magovern's occasional visitors was Old Haley, who had
regular employment upon our own place. Like Mike Quinlan, he rejoiced in
a wife who was an ornament to her sex--a most respectable, handsome and
intelligent woman, though education had done little to sharpen her wits
or widen her experience. She could tell a one from a five dollar bill,
as her husband would proudly inform you, and she could cook a dinner, do
up a skirt or a frilled cap, keep a house or tend a sick friend, as well
as any woman in the land. "Maggie's a janeous!" her husband would remark
with a look of intense admiration.

One evening Mrs. Haley made her appearance at our house, asking for an
audience of my mother. The object was to inform her--these sympathetic
people like to be advised in all their affairs--that being in need of
various household supplies she proposed on the following day to go to
the city and purchase them at the Washington Market.

"I suppose you have been to the city before, Mrs. Haley?" remarked my
mother.

"I have not, ma'am," said Mrs. Haley.

"Had you not better take some friend with you who