id ye?"

"Quite well. How is it wid yere hanner?'

"Tolerably. Where do you come from?"

"From Chepstow, yere hanner."

"And where are you going to?"

"To Newport, yere hanner."

"And I come from Newport, and am going to Chepstow. Where's Tourlough
and his wife?"

"At Cardiff, yere hanner; I shall join them again to-morrow."

"Have you been long away from them?"

"About a week, yere hanner."

"And what have you been doing?"

"Selling my needles, yere hanner."

"Oh! you sell needles. Well, I am glad to have met you. Let me see.
There's a nice little inn on the right: won't you come in and have some
refreshment?"

"Thank yere hanner; I have no objection to take a glass wid an old
friend."

"Well, then, come in; you must be tired, and I shall be glad to have some
conversation with you."

We went into the inn--a little tidy place. On my calling, a
respectable-looking old man made his appearance behind a bar. After
serving my companion with a glass of peppermint, which she said she
preferred to anything else, and me with a glass of ale, both of which I
paid for, he retired, and we sat down on two old chairs beneath a window
in front of the bar.

"Well," said I, "I suppose you have Irish: here's slainte--"

"Slainte yuit a shaoi," said the girl, tasting her peppermint.

"Well: how do you like it?'

"It's very nice indeed."

"That's more than I can say of the ale, which, like all the ale in these
parts, is bitter. Well, what part of Ireland do you come from?"

"From no part at all. I never was in Ireland in my life. I am from
Scotland Road, Manchester."

"Why, I thought you were Irish?"

"And so I am; and all the more from being born where I was. There's not
such a place for Irish in all the world as Scotland Road."

"Were your father and mother from Ireland?"

"My mother was from Ireland: my father was Irish of Scotland Road, where
they met and married."

"And what did they do after they married?"

"Why, they worked hard, and did their best to get a livelihood for
themselves and children, of which they had several besides myself, who
was the eldest. My father was a bricklayer, and my mother sold apples
and oranges and other fruits, according to the season, and also whiskey,
which she made herself, as she well knew how; for my mother was not only
a Connacht woman, but an out-and-out Connamara quean, and when only
thirteen had wrought with the lads who used to make the raal cratu