“Perhaps,” said Mary, “you do not encourage her to do so.”
“Encourage,” replied Lacy; “I don’t know what you mean by that—I work hard all the week, never spending a farthing at the public house on Saturdays, and on Sundays we have a snug, piping hot dinner, and a glass of punch into the bargain.”
“And how do you pass the evening?” asked Connor.
“Oh, very well,” says Lacy; “Susan, perhaps, puts on her cloak, and goes to Nancy Dillon, while her good man and I smoke a pipe quietly together.”
“Do you never go to prayers?” said Mary.
“To be sure I do, now and then,” replied Lacy, “and Susan goes whenever she gets a new riband to her old hat, to make her look decent. Indeed she went twice, to my certain knowledge, the day that his Honour’s housekeeper gave her the new stuff gown.”
Mary shook her head, and Lacy was displeased.
“May be,” said he, “you think we are not religious, as you call it; but I’ll be bound we’re as good Christians as those that make such a fuss about it. I learned the ten commandments when I was a boy, and remember them well enough to keep them now.”
“And do you think keeping the commandments in the sort of way you talk of, will bring you to heaven?” said Connor.
“Indeed I do,” replied Lacy, “what else should bring me there?”