"Yes, mem, yese makes everything so asy like! but it's such strange times for yese, mem!" and Biddy went flying about the room, her face glowing with excitement, pulling at every uneven log in the house, fully persuaded there must be some other apartment, if no more than a closet; and as she caught at a loose board, which only separated them from the open air, she looked through, delighted that she had discovered another room, and that her mistress would not now be obliged to share the same apartment with herself; for as the remembrance of certain devotional exercises to be gone through, over each bead in her rosary, came to her, she had her doubts if the "blissed St. Pathrick," (who, for reasons best known to herself, was her favorite saint), would condescend to listen to petitions offered from such near proximity to the unbelieving Protestants; not that she thought her mistress was not a most excellent woman, but she was a Protestant, and often had she called upon the blissid St. Patrick, to "bring her dear lady over to the thrue faith." As she bent down to look into the opening, congratulating herself upon the discovery, a large cat darted through, full into her face, and ran with speed out at the door.
"Och, murther! and may the good saints presarve us alive! What will become of us at all?" and in her fright she went headlong into a pile of milk-pans, her unwieldy arms making certain involuntary revolutions, causing the air to resound with a chorus, which might have done credit to the first callithumpian in the land.
"Ho! what is all this?" cried Mr. Santon, who had stepped in at the commencement of the prelude; "what are you looking for under those pans, Biddy?"
"Sure, sir, and it's mesilf that's afther being exterpretated intirely! The varmints! faith, there was a dozen, sir, came scratching at me;" and she pointed at the aperture, as if in dread expectation of seeing their ghosts in pursuit; but lo! instead, there was the full, round face of Pat, who, having been left to take up his night's lodging with the creatures, in the apology for a barn, had espied the light, and not being able to resist the temptation of getting one more glimpse at the "swate Biddy," he had ventured to look in, and catching a glimpse of her woebegone face from among the shining tins, he exclaimed:
"Och, honey dear, and has it come to this? that yese obliged to make yese bed of the likes of that! And if ye'll wait a bit it's mesilf that'll run and fetch some of the nate, saft sthraw, that ye can fill the tins, and 'twill do ye betther; indade, and it's none but a hathen that could endure the likes of that!"
"Ah! Pathrick, is it ye? and was ye pint up in there wid the crathurs?"
"Yes, it's mesilf that will be risting with the bastes, the night," said Pat, thinking she had alluded to the creatures in the barn; "and I'll be wishing ye swate dhrames, and a plinty' of thim;" saying which he disappeared, leaving the trembling Biddy in great anxiety of mind as to what should be his fate.
As the little Winnie peeped out from behind the screen, when they had all retired, and saw Biddy counting her beads, with her eye still fixed upon the spot where she had last seen the smiling Patrick, she laughed outright, in spite of the crevices in the roof overhead, and she laid her down and looked up at the stars which came twinkling in upon her, 'till those great black eyes gradually diminished in size, and her little brain was busily engaged among the familiar scenes of the home which she had left so far away.
Cautiously did Biddy, with the first dawn of day, advance toward where she had dreamed her poor "Pathrick" was in close contact with the veritable bastes, and the family was awakened from their slumbers by her loud tones, lamenting that "niver a vistage of Pathrick, the cats, or the ante-room was left," for on looking out, the only object which met her gaze was the sun, which was just coming up in the east.
"What's the time, Biddy?" asked Mrs. Santon.