“And that was his daughter, then?”
“Yes, sir; and a purty crayture she is, and a kind-hearted. The moment she heerd she was on her father's estate, she began asking the names of all the people, and if they were well off, and what they had to ate, and where was the schools.”
“The schools!” broke in Mary, in an accent of great derision—“musha, it's great schooling we want up the glen, to teach us to bear poverty and cowld, without complaining: learning is a fine thing for the hunger—”
Her irony was too delicate for the thick apprehension of poor Jim, who felt himself addressed by the remark, and piously responded—
“It is so, glory be to God!”
“Well,” said the young man, who now seemed all eagerness to resume the subject—“well, and what then?”
“Then, she was wondering where was the roads up to the cabins on the mountains, as if the likes of them people had roads!”
“They've ways of their own—the English,” interrupted Jim, who felt jealous of his companion being always referred to—“for whenever we passed a little potatoe garden, or a lock of oak, it was always, 'God be good to us, but they're mighty poor hereabouts;' but when we got into the raal wild part of the glen, with divil a house nor a human being near us, sorrow word out of their mouths but 'fine, beautiful, elegant!' till we came to Keim-an-eigh, and then, ye'd think that it was fifty acres of wheat they were looking at, wid all the praises they had for the big rocks, and black cliffs oyer our heads.”
“I showed them your honour's father's place on the mountains,” said Joe.
“Yes, faith,” broke in Jim; “and the young lady laughed and said, 'you see, father, we have a neighbour after all.'”