“You're a wealthy woman, certainly, Mrs. Connell, and what's more, I'm not at all surprised at it. Your health, once more, and long life to you! Suppose, however, that Dan got a fitting wife, what would you expect as a proper portion? I have a reason for asking.”
“Dan, plase your Reverence, will get four thousand to begin the world wid; an', as he's to expect none but a Catholic, I suppose if he gets the fourth part of that, it's as much as he ought to look for.”
“A thousand pounds!—hut tut! The woman's beside herself. Why look about you and try where you can find a Catholic girl with a thousand pounds fortune, except in a gentleman's family, where Dan could never think of going.”
“That's thrue, any how, your Reverence,” observed Peter.—“A thousand pounds! Ellish! you needn't look for it. Where is it to be had out of a gintleman's family, as his Reverence says thrue enough.”
“An' now, Docthor,” said Ellish, “what 'ud you think a girl ought to bring a young man like Dan, that's to have four thousand pounds?”
“I don't think any Catholic girl of his own rank in the county, could get more than a couple of hundred.”
“That's one shillin' to every pound he has,” replied Ellish, almost instantaneously. “But, Father, you may as well spake out at wanst,” she continued, for she was too quick and direct in all her dealings to be annoyed by circumlocution; “you're desairous of a match between Dan an' Miss Granua?”
“Exactly,” said the priest; “and what is more, I believe they are fond of each other. I know Dan is attached to her, for he told me so. But, now that we have mentioned her, I say that there is not a more accomplished girl of her persuasion in the parish we sit in. She can play on the bagpipes better than any other piper in the province, for I taught her myself; and I tell you that in a respectable man's wife a knowledge of music is a desirable thing. It's hard to tell, Mrs. Connell, how they may rise in the World, and get into fashionable company, so that accomplishments, you persave, are good, she can make a shirt and wash it, and she can write Irish. As for dancing, I only wish you'd see her at a hornpipe. All these things put together, along with her genteel connections, and the prospect of what I may be able to lave her—I say your son may do worse.”
“It's not what you'd lave her, sir, but what you'd give her in the first place, that I'd like to hear. Spake up, your Reverence, an' let us know how far you will go.”
“I'm afeard, sir,” said Peter, “if it goes to a clane bargain atween yez, that Ellish will make you bid up for Dan. Be sharp; sir, or you'll have no chance; faix, you won't.”