well, I trust," said the priest. "I shall mention this to
Dan and the rest, and depend upon it, they, too, will be happy to hear
it."

"Here's what Mr. O'Flaherty an' myself made up," said Peter: "burn it,
Father; take it out of my sight, for it's now no use to me."

"What is this at all?" said Mr. Mulcahy, looking into it. "Is it an
oath?"

"It's the Joggraphy of one I swore some time ago; but it's now out of
date--I'm done wid it."

The priest could not avoid smiling when he perused it, and on getting
from Peter's lips an explanation of the hieroglyphics, he laughed
heartily at the ingenious shifts they had made to guide his memory.

Peter, for some time after this, confined himself to one glass, as
he had promised; but he felt such depression and feebleness, that he
ventured slowly, and by degrees, to enlarge the "glass" from which he
drank. His impression touching the happiness of his wife was, that as he
had for several months strictly observed his promise, she had probably
during that period gone to heaven. He then began to exercise his
ingenuity gradually, as we have said, by using, from time to time, a
glass larger than the preceding one; thus receding from the spirit of
his vow to the letter, and increasing the quantity of his drink from a
small glass to the most capacious tumbler he could find. The manner in
which he drank this was highly illustrative of the customs which prevail
on this subject in Ireland. He remembered, that in making the vow, he
used the words, "neither in the house nor out of it;" but in order
to get over this dilemma, he usually stood with one foot outside the
threshold, and the other in the house, keeping himself in that position
which would render it difficult to determine whether he was either
out or in. At other times, when he happened to be upstairs, he usually
thrust one-half of his person out of the window, with the same ludicrous
intention of keeping the letter of his vow.

Many a smile this adroitness of his occasioned to the lookers-on: but
further ridicule was checked by his wobegone and afflicted look. He was
now a mere skeleton, feeble and tottering.

One night, in the depth of winter, he went into the town where his two
sons resided; he had been ill in mind and body during the day, and he
fancied that change of scene and society might benefit him. His daughter
and son-in-law, in consequence of his illness, watched him so closely,
that he could not succeed in getting