Mr. Price, quick in planning and executing, soon arranged every thing to his mind, and what was extraordinary, to the liking of every one. In ten days he installed Daniel M’Leary in the north shanty, giving him the key of the north, east and west gates; in the south shanty, he placed Bonny Betty and her six helpless children; and a day it was to see, for both he and Mrs. M’Curdy, as well as dear little Norah, kept the thing a profound secret. The first intimation Bonny Betty had of the good luck, was in the morning of the day of her removal; Mrs. M’Curdy called in by accident, as it were, and observed that she should not be surprised if Mr. Price were to call in and see about the wen on Benny’s forehead; “so Betty, my friend, suppose you red up the children a little; here is Susan quite able, I am sure, to lend a hand, deaf and dumb though the poor little thing is. See how handy she goes to work.” “If you thought he’d be coming Sally, why I’d leave my work, and put on their Sunday clothes; but poor little Jemmy is very feverish to-day, and Christie’s legs are more swelled than common; are you sure he’ll be coming this way?” “No, I am not sure, but at any rate red up the children, for who knows what may happen; you’re an honest industrious woman, and you may well be called Bonny Betty; I think ye’ll eat your dinner in a better house than this ere you die; good folks are not always neglected.” Well, Bonny Betty left her work, and in an hour the poor little creatures were dressed in their best; and at ten o’clock, Mrs. M’Curdy and Norah, with all the women of the other shanties, as well as those children that were at home, proceeded to her house, and asked her to take a walk and look at the gentleman’s improvements. On being urged by Mrs. M’Curdy, whom she very much respected, and seeing the eager looks of the children, she sat out with them. All was wonderment and pleasure when they got to the shanty, for the pots were boiling, and the meat was roasting, loaves of bread, and plates of butter, and gingerbread, and small cakes, were all paraded on a clean new table; in short, a house-warming was prepared for some one. “Oh! if all this was for me and my poor children,” thought Bonny Betty, “how happy I should be; but then there’s the other poor bodies, I’m thinking, wishing the same thing, and sure, have not they as good a right as me?” “Now Betty, did not I tell you, that you’d eat your dinner in a better house than your old ricketty forlorn one? You are in your own house now, Bonny Betty! for the good kind man, God bless him, has bid me tell you, that by giving him the same rent that you pay for that old one, you may live in this nice comfortable house.”