“Thim very same words as youʼve said”. She turned towards the door with a sullen air, while he looked at Sir Cradock in triumph. Nevertheless, he still wanted her evidence as to the subsequent mistake. He had been, as I said, to the “Jolly Foresters” and seen the Miss Penny of old; who now, as the mother of nine or ten children, was kindly communicative upon all questions of infancy. “So then, Mrs. OʼGaghan, with the best intentions in the world, you marked the elder child with a rosette, as I saw on the following day”. “Thrue for you as the Gospel. And what more wud you have me do”? “Nothing. Only take a needle and thread to it; instead of crimping it into the cap”. Poor Biddy started from where she stood, and pressed one hand to her heart. “Itʼs the divil himself”, she muttered. “as turns me inside out so. And sure that same is the reason he does be so black red”. Then aloud, with a final rally— “And who say they iver see me take a needle and thread? And if I did, what odds to them”? “No, that was the very thing you omitted to do, until it was too late. But when you sent to Mrs. Toaster for her large butter–scales, what was it you put on each side”? “What was it? No lining at all. Fair play for the both of them, as I hope to be weighed in purgatory”. Sir Cradock was looking on, all this while, with the deepest amazement and interest. He had not received any hint beforehand of this confirmative evidence. “And, pray, what was the reason that you wanted to weigh them at all? You know that it is considered unlucky among nurses to weigh infants”. “Why else wud I weigh them, except to see which wur the heaviest”? “And pray, Bridget, which was the heavier”? asked Sir Cradock, almost smiling. “Mr. Cradock, as is now, your honour. Iʼd swear it on my dying bed. Did you think, then, Iʼd iver wrong him, the innocents as they was”? “And did you weigh them with rosettes on”? Rufus Hutton had not finished yet. “How cud I, and only one got it”? “Oh, then, you had fastened it on again”? “Do you think they was born with ribbons on”? This was poor Biddyʼs last repartee. She lost heart and told everything afterwards. How she had heard that there was some difference in the marks of the infants, though what it was she knew not justly; having, like most Irishwomen, the clearest perception that right and left are only relative terms, and come wrong in the looking–glass, as they do in heraldry. How, when she found the rosette adrift, she had done the very best she could, according to her lights, to work even–handed justice, and up to this very day believed that the heft of the scales was the true one. Then she fell to a–crying bitterly that her darling Crad should be ousted, and then she laughed as heartily that her dear boy Clayton was in for it.