at first-cost,
anyhow: but no cross-questions to me about it, if you regard your
health!"

"I must say for you," replied Denis, reproachfully, "that you're a good
warrant to put the health astray upon us of an odd start: we're not come
to this time o' day widout carryin' somethin' to remimber you by. For my
own part, Tony, I don't like such tokens; an' moreover, I wish you
had resaved a thrifle o' larnin', espishily in the writin' line; for
whenever we have any difference, you're so ready to prove your opinion
by settin' your mark upon me, that I'd rather, fifty times over, you
could write it with pen an' ink."

"My father will give that up, uncle," said the niece; "it's bad for any
body to be fightin', but worst of all for brothers, that ought to live
in peace and kindness. Won't you, father?"

"Maybe I will, dear, some o' these days, on your account, Anne; but you
must get this creature of an uncle of yours, to let me alone, an' not
be aggravatin' me with his folly. As for your mother, she's worse; her
tongue's sharp enough to skin a flint, and a batin' a day has little
effect on her."

Anne sighed, for she knew how long an irreligious life, and the infamous
society with which, as her father's wife, her mother was compelled to
mingle, had degraded her.

"Well, but, father, you don't set her a good example yourself," said
Anne; "and if she scoulds and drinks now, you know she was a different
woman when you got her. You allow this yourself; and the crathur, the
dhrunkest time she is, doesn't she cry bittherly, remimberin' what she
has been. Instead of one batin' a day, father, thry no batin' a day, an'
maybe it 'ill turn out betther than thump-in' an' smashin' her as you
do."

"Why, thin, there's truth and sinse in what the girl says, Tony,"
observed Denis.

"Come," replied Anthony, "whatever she may say I'll suffer none of your
interference. Go an' get us the black bottle from the place; it'll soon
be time to move. I hope they won't stay too long."

Denis obeyed this command with great readiness, for whiskey in some
degree blunted the fierce passions of his brother, and deadened his
cruelty; or rather diverted it from minor objects to those which
occurred in the lawless perpetration of his villany.

The bottle was got, and in the meantime the fire blazed up brightly; the
storm without, however, did not abate, nor did Meehan and his brother
wish that it should. As the elder of them took the glass from the