“Oh, it is far different with us; when your honor is able to leave the room I will show you my little garden, our little garden I should say; for here is Norah, who is sitting on your lap, so helpless like just now, she assists me greatly in the garden. She fetches and carries, helps sow the seeds, and more than helps weed; indeed last summer I had so much sowing to do that there was but little time to weed. And the dear child picked every bean and pea herself, and from a very little patch she got as much as a quart of strawberries every day; and did I not get eighteen pence for every quart, without stirring away from the door to sell them? And how much, dear, did you get from your little row of raspberries?” Norah said it was thirteen shillings. “Well, we made clear money, besides helping ourselves to as much as we wanted for our own eating, just fourteen dollars; it paid our rent and two dollars over; so it was no more than right that Norah, the little dear, should get the two dollars to herself; the very frock and shoes she has on, can show it.” Mr. Price kissed the little girl, whose sparkling eye showed how deeply she was interested in her grandmother’s story—he asked if all the shanties had gardens attached to them, and whether the children assisted their parents in working them. “Oh, no, poor things,” said the old lady, “they would work, even lazy Jemmy’s children would work if they were encouraged. But see how it is, your honour. When I came here nine years ago, Norah was just two months’ old—this shanty was knocked up quickly for me; and it had never a floor even till the winter came. There were then no other shanties near, and as I had paid for the building of the house and for the fence around the garden, I by degrees, got very comfortable. Before I built the chimney, sashed the window, and made the floor, it was bad enough; but I had not enough money at the time, and it was only by working early and late, and my poor dear daughter helped too, that I got all these things done, and proud enough I was to show people how much a lone woman could do. There’s many a woman here, your honour, in these shanties, that could do very well if their husbands would let them, but a poor woman has no chance at all. Here is Biddy Brady, my next neighbour, she has seven children, from ten years down to that little wee thing yonder, that has just now been taken out for the first time—there it is, Norah dear, and she’s called it Norah after my grandchild, sir, because Norah has been kind like in her ways to poor Biddy, who is to be sure, a little bit of a scold, and always in a hubbub of some kind or other. My landlord leased me this piece of ground for ten years; but well he may, for I have made this house quite comfortable, you see. There are three rooms, small enough to be sure, but if I have to leave it, and oh, how loath I shall be to go from it, he will get thirty-six dollars for it instead of twelve—only think of that.