o be a boy, and I
went with my sisters to congratulate the happy mother. "What will you
name the little fellow, Mrs. Godfrey?" I asked, sympathetically.

The poor woman looked up with a smile, saying weakly, "John Pathrick,
miss--John afther the father, an' Pathrick afther the saint."

The following year the same unexpected luck brought another boy, and
again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried our
congratulations: "What will be the name of this little boy, Mrs.
Godfrey?"

"Pathrick John, miss--Pathrick afther the saint, an' John afther the
father."

A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came over me.
"Why, Mrs. Godfrey," I said, "was not that the name of your last child?"

"To be shure, miss. Why would I be trating one betther than the other?"

A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a stone in the
eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home for the quieter
protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and one day my sister and
myself knocked at Mrs. King's door to inquire about the state of the
injured organ.

"Troth, miss, it's very bad," said Mrs. King.

"What do you do for it, Mrs. King?"

"Do?" said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her apron to her
overflowing eyes--"Do?" she continued in a broken voice. "I've been
crying these three days."

"But what do you do to make it better?"

Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied herself to the
setting forth of her humane exertions: "In comes Mistress Magovern,
an', 'Mrs. King,' sez she, 'put rar bafesteak to the choild's oye;' an'
that minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak wint to it. Thin comes Mrs. Haley.
'Is it rar bafesteak ye'd be putting to it, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Biling
clothes, Mrs. King,' sez she. That minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak come
afif an' the biling clothes wint to it. In comes Mrs. Quinlan. 'Will ye
be destryin' the choild's oye intirely, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Cowld ice,
Mrs. King.' An' that minit, ma'am, the biling clothes come aff an' the
cowld ice wint to it. Oh, I do be doin' iverything anybody do tell me."

It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The
Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for
the day and taken the door-key with her. "Thim lads is big enough to
take care of thimsilves," she would remark, though "the lads" were not
yet capable of coherent speech. No doubt they wandered into some
neighbor's at meal-t