tood to reason that he wanted
sometimes to be checked and scolded too. He had neither father or mother
to guide him, poor boy; and who would guide him, and advise him too, if
his own sister wouldn't do it? Only one-and-twenty, and six feet in his
shoes; but no _punhial_, no cabbage upon two pot-sticks, like some she
knew, that were ready enough to give boy a harsh word when they ought to
look nearer home, and--may-be--but she said nothing--as God forbid that
she'd make or meddle with any neighbor's character; but still, may-be,
they'd find enough to blame at home, if they'd open their eyes to their
own failings, as well as they do to the failings of their neighbors."

Another circumstance also strongly characteristic of the woman's heart,
was evinced in the high and vigorous tone she assumed towards Hugh,
whenever, in any of his dark moods, he happened to take Felix to task.
These fierce encounters, however, never occurred in Felix's presence;
for she thought that to take his part then, would remove, in a great
degree, the 'vantage ground on which she stood with reference to
himself. Difficult, indeed, was the part she found herself compelled
to play on those delicate occasions. She could not, as a moralist and
disciplinarian, proverbially strict, seem in any degree to countenance
the charges brought by Hugh against Felix; nor, on the other hand, was
it without a command of temper and heroic self-denial, rarely attained,
that she was able to keep, her indignation against Hugh pent up within
decorous and plausible limits. During the remonstrance of the latter,
she usually pushed the charges against Felix into the notorious failings
of Hugh himself, and this she did in a tone of irony so dry and cutting,
that Hugh was almost in every case, as willing to abandon the attack as
he had been to begin it.

"Ay, indeed," she would proceed--"troth an' conscience, Hugh,
avourneen"--avourneen being pronounced with a civil bitterness that was
perfectly withering--"troth an' conscience, Hugh, avourneen, it's truth
you're speaking, and not only that, Hugh darling, but he's as dark as
the old _dioul_ betimes, so he is, and runs into such fits of blackness
and anger, for no reason--Hugh, _dheelish_, for no reason in life, man
alive. Are, you listening, Hugh? for it's to you I'm speaking, dear--for
no reason in life, acushla, only because he's a dirty, black bodagh,
that his whole soul and body's not worth the scrapings of a pot in a
ha