-

"Mrs. Connell," said their landlord, "say no more. The farm is yours,
and you may, consider yourselves as my tenants."

"Many thanks to you, sir, for the priference. I hope, sir, you'll not
rue what you did in givin' it to us before them that offered a higher
rint. You'll find, sir, wid the help o' the Almighty, that we'll pay you
your rint rigular an' punctual."

"Why, thin, long life, an' glory, an' benedication to your honor! Faith,
it's only kind father for you, sir, to be what you are. The divil resave
the family in all Europe"--

"Peter, that will do," replied the landlord, "it would be rather
hazardous for our family to compete with all Europe. Go home, Peter,
and be guided by your wife, who has more sense in her little finger than
ever your family had either in Europe or out of it, although I mean you
no offense by going beyond Europe."

"By all the books that never wor opened an' shut," replied Peter,
with the intuitive quickness of perception peculiar to Irishmen, "an
innocenter boy than Andy Connell never was sent acrass the water. I
proved as clear an alibi for him as the sun in the firmanent; an' yit,
bad luck to the big-wig O'Grady, he should be puttin' in his leek an me
afore the jury, jist whin I had the poor boy cleared out dacently, an'
wid all honor. An' bedad, now, that we're spakin about it, I'll tell
your honor the whole conclusions of it. You see, sir, the Agint was shot
one night; an' above all nights in the year, your honor, a thief of a
toothache that I had kep me"--

"Pether, come away, abouchal: his honor kaows as much about it as you
do, Come, aroon; you know we must help to scald an' scrape the pig afore
night, an' it's late now."

"Bodad, sir, she's a sweet one, this."

"Be guided by her, Peter, if you're wise, she's a wife you ought to be
proud of."

"Thrue for you, sir; divil resave the word o' lie in that, any how.
Come, Ellish; come, you deludher, I'm wid you."

"God bless your honor, sir, an' we're ob'laged to you for you kindness
an' patience wid the likes o' us."

"I say ditto, your honor. Long life an' glory to you every day your
honor rises!"

Peter, on his way home, entered into a defence of his apology for
offering so high a rent to the landlord; but although it possessed both
ingenuity and originality, it was, we must confess, grossly defective in
those principles usually inculcated by our best Ethic writers.

"Couldn't you have tould him what we agreed upon