'They aren't begging, miss, axing your pardon; but musha! it's little softness there's about the house.'
'Well, suppose she has known what it is to want, she will know better how to take care of plenty, when she gets it.'
'Troth, I don't know. Maybe when she'd get her two hands full she'd be throwin' away, for them that's reared in poverty seldom knows how to guide plenty when it comes.'
'Well, I have always heard Mary extolled for being the prettiest and the best girl in Innishowen; and I am sure you may think yourself a happy man if you can get her for your wife,' I said rather sharply.
'Sorra word a lie in that, Miss Ellen,' replied Tim, as he placed the last young geranium in its pot. 'She's a good girl, and as purty a one as you'd see in a summer's day; but I'm thinkin' I'll step up an' see them all before I spake to her.'
'Why, Tim, have things gone so far as that?'
'Well, I may say I have her courted up to the axin, miss.'
'And the other, Tim?' I asked, intensely amused.
'Troth, I don't know, but I have her on hands too.'
'Now, is that fair to either?' I asked rather indignantly.