about the head, Denis? or maybe
it's a touch of a faver you've got, out riddling that corn bare-headed,
yistherday? I remimber the time my Aunt Bridget tuck the scarlet faver,
she begun to rave and spake foolish in the same way."

"Why, woman, if your Aunt Bridget had a faver made up of all the colors
in the rainbow, I tell you I'm spakin' sinse! Our son Dionnisis proved
himself a gintleman out in the garden wid me about an hour ago."

"I suppose so, Denis," she replied, humoring' him, for she was still
doubly convinced that he labored under some incipient malady, if not
under actual insanity; "an' what son is this, Dinny? I've never heard of
him before."

"Our son Denis, woman alive! You must know he's not to be called Dinny
or Dinis any more, but Dionnisis; he's to begin atin' wid a knife an'
fork to-morrow; we must get him beef and mutton, and a _tay_ breakfast.
He say's it's not fair play in any one that's so deep read in the
larnin' as he is, to ate like a vulgarian, or to peel his phaties wid
his fingers, an' him knows so much Latin an' Greek; an' my sowl to
happiness but he'll stick to the gintlemanly way of livin', so far as
the beef, an' mutton, and tay is consamed."

"He will! An', Dinis O'Shaughnessy, who has a betther right to turn
gintleman, nor the gorsoon that studied for that! Isn't it proud you
ought to be that he has the spirit to think of sich things?"

"I'll engage, Mave, on that point you'll find him spirited enough; for
my part, I don't begrudge him what he wants; but I heard the people say,
that no man's a gintleman who's not College-bred; and you know he's not
that yet."

"You forget that he has gentle blood in his veins, Denis. There was a
day when my family, the Magennises, held their heads up; and Kolumkill
says that the same time is to come back agin to all the ould families.
Who knows if it's altogether from himself he's takin' to the beef an'
mutton, but from prophecy; he knows what he's about, I'll warrant him.
For our part, it's not right for us to cross him in it; it's for the
good of the church, no doubt, an' we might lose more by a blast upon the
corn or the cattle, than he'd ate the other way. That's my dhrame out
that I had last night about him. I thought we were all gother somewhere
that I can't rightly remimber; but anyhow there was a great sight of
people in it, an' high doin's goin' an in the atin' way. I looked
about me, an' seen ever so many priests dressed all like the P