"You're mighty impident to-day, Mr. Kinchela."
"Athin, Norieen, jewel," answered Pat, "if it comes to the rights of the thing, how the divil can I help it? Sure an' haven't you kept me danglin' afther you for nigh hand a twel'month, an' it's neither yis nor no, that I can squeeze out of your purty little mouth."
"Ah, indeed!" said Norah, with the shadow of a pout that might have been simulated, "then I suppose you'd be satisfied whichever it was."
"Faix, yis would be satisfactory enough," replied Pat, who did his wooing in rather a careless manner, philosophically.
"And if it happened to be no?"
"Why, thin, I suppose I'd have to put up wid that for the want of a betther."
"An' try your luck somewhere else, may-be?" continued Norah, with a dash of lemon.
"An' why not?" answered Pat, with apparent carelessness. "If you couldn't ketch a throut in one place, you wouldn't come back wid an empty basket, would you? unless, may-be, you had no particular appetite for fish."
"Then, sir, you have my permission to bait your hook as soon as you like, for I have no idea of nibblin'," said Norah, letting go Pat's arm, and walking very fast—not so fast, though, but that our cavalier friend could keep up with her, flinging in occasional morsels of aggravation.
"Now, don't be foolish, Norah; you're only tellin' on yourself. The boys will see that we've had a tiff, and the girls will be sure to say you're jealous."