"What are you singing for?" said I to Mary Maloney.
"Oh, I don't know, ma'am, without it's because my heart feels happy."
"Happy are you, Mary Maloney? Let me see; you don't own a foot of land in the world?"
"Foot of land, is it?" she cried, with a hearty Irish laugh; "oh, what a hand ye be after joking; why I haven't a penny, let alone the land."
"Your mother is dead!"
"God rest her soul, yes," replied Mary Maloney, with a touch of genuine pathos; "may the angels make her bed in heaven."
"Your brother is still a hard case, I suppose."
"Ah, you may well say that. It's nothing but drink, drink, drink, and beating his poor wife, that she is, the creature."
You have to pay your little sister's board."
"Sure, the bit creature, and she's a good little girl, is Hinny, willing to do whatever I axes her. I don't grudge the money what goes for that."