"Och! murdher!—heigho! beautiful Betsy," sighed Larry, rapturously.
"Did you walk, Mr. Toole?" inquired the maiden.
"I did so," rejoined Larry.
"Young master's just gone out," continued the maid.
"So I seen, jewel," replied Mr. Toole.
"An' you may as well come into the parlour, an' have some drink and victuals," added she, with an encouraging smile.
"Is there no fear of his coming in on me?" inquired Larry, cautiously.
"Tilly vally, man, who are you afraid of?" exclaimed the handmaiden, cheerily. "Come, Mr. Toole, you used not to be so easily frightened."
"I'll never be afraid to folly your lead, most beautiful and bewildhering iv famales," ejaculated Mr. Toole, gallantly. "So here goes; folly on, and I'll attind you behind."
Accordingly, they both entered the great parlour, where the table bore abundant relics of a plenteous meal, and Mistress Betsy Carey, with her own fair hands, placed a chair for him at the table, and heaping a plate with cold beef and bread, laid it before her grateful swain, along with a foaming tankard of humming ale. The maid was gracious, and the beef delicious; his ears drank in her accents, and his throat her ale, and his heart and mouth were equally full. Thus, in a condition as nearly as human happiness can approach to unalloyed felicity, realizing the substantial bliss of Mahomet's paradise, Mr. Toole ogled and ate, and glanced and guzzled in soft rapture, until the force of nature could no further go on, and laying down his knife and fork, he took one long last draught of ale, measuring, it is supposed, about three half-pints, and then, with an easy negligence, wiping the froth from his mouth with the cuff of his coat, he addressed himself to the fair dame once more,—