'Nothing was the same. They was the shoes that the little pigs went to slaap in, afore they got so big that they couldn't git in them, and then it was her brother that used one of them same for a trunk when he emigrated to Amenity. Arrah, now, but wasn't me own Bridget a jewel?'
'Jehosephat! I should think she was!' exclaimed Hopkins, who had listened in amazement to this enumeration of the beauties of the gentle Irish lass, who had won the affections of Mickey McSquizzle. 'No doubt she had a sweet disposition.'
'Indeed she had, had she; it was that of an angel, was the same. It was niver that I staid there a night coorting the same that she didn't smash her shillaleh to smithereens over me head. Do yees obsarve that?' asked Mickey, removing his hat, and displaying a scar that extended half way across his head.
'I don't see how any one can help seeing that.'
'Well, that was the parting salute of Bridget, as I started for Ameriky. Arrah, now, but she did the same in style.'
'That was her parting memento, was it?'
'Yes; I gave her the black eye, and she did the same fur me, and I niver takes off me hat to scratch me head that I don't think of the swate gal that I left at home.'
And thereupon the Irishman began whistling 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,' accompanying it with a sort of waltzing dance, kept with remarkably good time.
'And so you intend to marry her?' inquired Hopkins, with no little amazement.
'It's that I do, ef I finds her heart fraa when I return to Ballyduff, You know, that the loikes of her is sought by all the lads in Kings County, and to save braaking their hearts, she may share the shanty of some of 'em.'