"You haven't many fashionable dresses, either, Mary Maloney."
"Fashionable, is it? Oh, yes, I put a piece of whalebone in my skirt, and me calico gown looks as big as the great ladies. But then ye says true, I hasn't but two gowns to me back, two shoes, to me feet, and one bonnet to me head, barring the old hood you gave me."
"You haven't any lover, Mary Maloney."
"Oh, be off wid ye—ketch Mary Maloney getting a lover these days, when the hard times is come. No, no, thank Heaven I haven't got that to trouble me yet, nor I don't want it."
"What on earth, then, have you got to make you happy? A drunken brother, a poor helpless sister, no mother, no father, no lover; why, where do you get all your happiness from?"
"The Lord be praised, Miss, it growed up in me. Give me a bit of sunshine, a clean flure, plenty of work, and a sup at the right time, and I'm made. That makes me laugh and sing, and then if deep trouble comes, why, God helpin' me, I'll try to keep my heart up. Sure, it would be a sad thing if Patrick McGrue should take it into his head to come an ax me, but, the Lord willin', I'd try to bear up under it."
Philadelphia Bulletin.
* * * * *
THE POLISH BOY.
Whence came those shrieks, so wild and shrill,
That like an arrow cleave the air,
Causing the blood to creep and thrill
With such sharp cadence of despair?
Once more they come! as if a heart
Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,
And every string had voice apart
To utter its peculiar woe!