“Phelim—behave—I say—now stop wid you—well—well—but you're the tazin' Phelim!—Throth the girls may be glad when you're married,” exclaimed Peggy, adjusting her polished hair.
“Bad cess to the bit, if ever I got so sweet a one in my life—the soft end of a honeycomb's a fool to it. One thing, Peggy, I can tell you—that I'll love you in great style. Whin we're marrid it's I that'll soodher you up. I won't let the wind blow on you. You must give up workin', too. All I'll ax you to do will be to nurse the childhre; an' that same will keep you busy enough, plase Goodness.”
“Upon my faix, Phelim, you're the very sarra, so you are. Will you be asy now? I'll engage when you're married, it'll soon be another story wid you. Maybe you'd care little about us thin!”
“Be the vestments, I'm spakin' pure gospel, so I am. Sure you don't know that to be good husbands runs in our family. Every one of them was as sweet as thracle to their wives. Why, there's that ould cock, my fadher, an' if you'd see how he butthers up the ould woman to this day, it 'ud make your heart warm to any man o' the family.”
“Ould an' young was ever an' always the same to you, Phelim. Sure the ouldest woman in the parish, if she happened to be single, couldn't miss of your blarney. It's reported you're goin' to be marrid to an ould woman.'
“He—-hem—ahem! Bad luck to this cowld I have! it's stickin' in my throath entirely, so it is!—hem!—to a what?”
“Why to an ould woman, wid a great deal of the hard goold!”
Phelim put his hand instinctively to his waistcoat pocket, in which he carried the housekeeper's money.
“Would you oblage one wid her name?”
“You know ould Molly Kavanagh well enough, Phelim.”