LETTER XXXIX. BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN O'SHEA, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF.
Dear Mrs. Shusan,—I was meaning to write to you for the last week, but could n't by reason of the conflagration I was in, for sure any poor girl might feel it, seeing that I was far away among furriners, and had nobody to advise, barrin' the evil counsels of my wicked heart. We cam here two weeks gone, on a visit to the father of the young man that 's going to marry "Mary Anne." It's a great big ould place, like the jail at Limerick, only darker, with little windows, and a flite of stairs out of every corner in it. And the furnishing is n't a bit newer. It's a bit of rag here and a rag there, an ould cabbinet, a hard sofa, and maybe four wooden chairs that would take a ladder to get into! Eatin' and drinkin' likewise the same. Biled beef—biled first for the broth, and sarved afterwards with cow-comers, sliced and steeped in oil—the Heavens preserve us! Then a dish of roast vale, with rasberry jam and musheroons, for they tries the human stomich with every ingradiant they can think of! But the great favorite of all is a salad made out of potatoes, biled bard, sliced and pickled the same way as the cow-comers! A bowl of that, Mrs. Shusan, after a long dinner, makes you feel as full as a tick, and if the house was afire I could n't run! To be sure, when the meal is over everybody sits down to coffee, and does n't distress themselves about anything for a matter of two hours. And, indeed, I must make the remark that "manials" isn't as badly treated anywhere in the whole 'versal globe as in Ireland, and if it was n't that I hear the people is runnin' away o' themselves, I 'd write a letter to the papers about it! 'T is exactly like pigs you are, no better; potatoes and butter-milk all the year round! deny it if you can. Could you offer a pig less wages than four pound a year?
I must say, too, Shusan, that eatin' one's fill molly-fies ther nature, and subdues ther hasty dispositions in a wonderful way; I know it myself; and that after a strong supper now I can bear more from the mistress than I used at home, only giving a sigh now and then out of the fulness of my heart. But it's not them things I wanted to tell you, but of the state of my infections. Don't be angry with me, Mrs. Shusan. I don't forget the iligant lessons you gave me long ago, about thrusting the men; I know well how thrue every word you said is. They 're base, and wicked, and deceatful! Flatterin' us when we 're young and beautiful, and gibin' and jeerin' when we 're ould as yourself! But what's the use of fiting agin the will of Providence? Sure, if he intended us to have better husbands it's not them craytures he'd have left us to! My sentiments is these, Shusy: 'Tis a way of chastezin' us is marriage! The throubles and tumults we have with a man are our crosses, and it's only cowardly to avoid them. Meet your feat, say I, whatever it be,—whether it be a man or the measles, don't be afraid!
I 'm shure and sartain it's nothing but fear makes young girls go and be nuns; they're afraid, and no wonder, of the wickedness of the world; but somehow, Shusan, like everything else in this life, one gets used to it. I know it well, there 's many a thing I see now, without minding, that long ago I dared not look at. "Live and learn," they say, and there's nothing so thrue! And talking of that, you 'd be shocked to see how Mary Anne goes on wid the young Baron. She, that would scarce let poor Doctor Belton spake to her alone. We meet them walk in' in the lonesomest places together; and Taddy and I never goes into the far part of the wood without seeing them! And that's not all of it, my dear, but she must get the mistress to give me a lecture about going off myself with a man.
"Does n't your daughter do it, ma'am?" says I. "Is all the wickedness of this world," says I, "to be kept for one's betters?"
"Do you call marriage wickedness?" says she.
"Sometimes it is, ma'am," says I, with a look she understood well.
"You 're a huzzy," says she; "and I 'll give you warnin' next Saturday."
"I'll take it now," says I, "ma'am, for I'm going to better myself."