Now the reader must know something of the fair Mistress Flanagan who was left in very comfortable circumstances by a niggardly husband, who did her the favour to die suddenly one day, to the no small satisfaction of the pleasure-loving widow, who married him in an odd sort of a hurry, and got rid of him as quickly. Mr. Flanagan was engaged in supplying the export provision trade, which, every one knows, is considerable in Ireland; and his dealings in beef and butter were extensive. This brought him into contact with the farmers for many miles round, whom he met, not only every market-day at every market-town in the county, but at their own houses, where a knife and fork were always at the service of the rich buyer. One of these was a certain Mat Riley, who, on small means, managed to live, and rear a son and three bouncing, good-looking girls, who helped to make butter, feed calves, and superintend the education of pigs; and on these active and comely lasses Mr. Flanagan often cast an eye of admiration, with a view to making one of them his wife; for though he might have had his pick and choice of many fine girls in the towns he dealt in, he thought the simple, thrifty, and industrious habits of a plain farmer's daughter more likely to conduce to his happiness and _profit_--for in that principally lay the aforesaid happiness of Mr. Flanagan. Now, this intention of honouring one of the three Miss Rileys with promotion he never hinted at in the remotest degree, and even in his own mind the thought was mixed up with fat cattle and prices current; and it was not until a leisure moment one day, when he was paying Mat Riley for some of his farming produce, that he broached the subject thus: "Mat." "Sir." "I'm thinking o' marrying." "Well, she'll have a snug house, whoever she is, Misther Flanagan." "Them's fine girls o' yours." Poor Mat opened his eyes with delight at the prospect of such a match for one of his daughters, and said they were "comely lumps o' girls, sure enough; but, what was betther, they wor good." "That's what I'm thinking," says Flanagan. "There's two ten-poun' notes, and a five, and one is six, and one is seven; and three tenpinnies is two-and-sixpence; that's twenty-seven poun' two-and-sixpence: eight-pence-ha'penny is the lot; but I haven't copper in my company, Mat." "Oh, no matther, Misther Flanagan. And is it one o' my colleens you've been throwing the eye at, sir?" "Yes, Mat, it is. You're askin' too much for them firkins?" "Oh, Misther Flanagan, consider it's prime butther. I'll back my girls for making up a bit o' butther agen any girls in Ireland; and my cows is good, and the pasture prime." "'T is a farthing a poun' too high, Mat; and the market not lively." "The butther is good, Mr. Flanagan; and not decenther girls in Ireland than the same girls, though I'm their father." "I'm thinking I'll marry one o' them, Mat." "Sure, an' it's proud I'll be, sir; and which o' them is it, maybe?"