y to ask,
As the snow!

II

The hope of airy birth,
Like the snow,
Is stain'd on reaching earth,
Like the snow:
While 't is sparkling in the ray,
'T is melting fast away,
Like the snow!

III

A cold, deceitful thing
Is the snow,
Though it come on dove-like wing--
The false snow!
'T is but rain disguised appears;
And our hopes are frozen tears,
Like the snow!

A tear _did_ course down Fanny's cheek as she read the last couplet;
and closing the book and replacing it in the little basket, she sighed,
and said, "Poor fellow!--I wish he were not so sad!"

CHAPTER VIII

Love is of as many patterns, cuts, shapes, and colours as people's
garments; and the loves of Edward O'Connor and Fanny Dawson had very
little resemblance to the tender passion which agitated the breast of
the Widow Flanagan, and made Tom Durfy her slave. Yet the widow and Tom
demand the offices of the chronicler as well as the more elevated pair;
and this our veracious history could never get on, if we exhausted all
our energies upon the more engaging personages, to the neglect of the
rest: your plated handles, scrolls, and mountings are all very well on
your carriage, but it could not move without its plain iron bolts.

Now the reader must know something of the fair Mistress Flanagan who
was left in very comfortable circumstances by a niggardly husband, who
did her the favour to die suddenly one day, to the no small satisfaction
of the pleasure-loving widow, who married him in an odd sort of a hurry,
and got rid of him as quickly. Mr. Flanagan was engaged in supplying the
export provision trade, which, every one knows, is considerable in
Ireland; and his dealings in beef and butter were extensive. This
brought him into contact with the farmers for many miles round, whom he
met, not only every market-day at every market-town in the county, but
at their own houses, where a knife and fork were always at the service
of the rich buyer. One of these was a certain Mat Riley, who, on small
means, managed to live, and rear a son and three bouncing, good-looking
girls, who helped to make butter, feed calves, and superintend the
education of pigs; and on these active and comely lasses Mr. Flanagan
often cast an eye of admiration, with a view to making one of them his
wife; for though he might have had his pick and choice of many fine
girls in the towns he dealt i