“Bad cess to the bit, if ever I got so sweet a one in my life--the soft end of a honeycomb's a fool to it. One thing, Peggy, I can tell you--that I'll love you in great style. Whin we're marrid it's I that'll soodher you up. I won't let the wind blow on you. You must give up workin', too. All I'll ax you to do will be to nurse the childhre; an' that same will keep you busy enough, plase Goodness.” “Upon my faix, Phelim, you're the very sarra, so you are. Will you be asy now? I'll engage when you're married, it'll soon be another story wid you. Maybe you'd care little about us thin!” “Be the vestments, I'm spakin' pure gospel, so I am. Sure you don't know that to be good husbands runs in our family. Every one of them was as sweet as thracle to their wives. Why, there's that ould cock, my fadher, an' if you'd see how he butthers up the ould woman to this day, it 'ud make your heart warm to any man o' the family.” “Ould an' young was ever an' always the same to you, Phelim. Sure the ouldest woman in the parish, if she happened to be single, couldn't miss of your blarney. It's reported you're goin' to be marrid to an ould woman.' “He---hem--ahem! Bad luck to this cowld I have! it's stickin' in my throath entirely, so it is!--hem!--to a what?” “Why to an ould woman, wid a great deal of the hard goold!” Phelim put his hand instinctively to his waistcoat pocket, in which he carried the housekeeper's money. “Would you oblage one wid her name?” “You know ould Molly Kavanagh well enough, Phelim.” Phelim put up an inward ejaculation of thanks. “To the sarra wid her, an' all sasoned women. God be praised that the night's line, anyhow! Hand me the shell, an' we'll take a _gauliogue_ aich, an' afther that we'll begin an' talk over how lovin' an' fond o' one another we'll be.” “You're takin' too much o' the whiskey, Phelim. Oh, for Goodness' sake!--oh--b--b--n--now be asy. Faix, I'll go to the fire, an' lave you altogether, so I will, if you don't give over slustherin' me, that way, an' stoppin' my breath.” “Here's all happiness to our two selves, _acushla machree!_ Now thry another _gauliogue_, an' you'll see how deludin' it'll make you.” “Not a sup, Phelim.” “Arrah, nonsense! Be the vestment, it's as harmless as new milk from the cow. It'll only do you good, alanna. Come now, Peggy, don't be ondacent, an' it our first night's coortin'! Blood alive! don't make little o' my father's son on sich a night, an' us at business like this, anyhow!” “Phelim, by the crass, I won't take it; so that ends it. Do you want to make little o' me? It's not much you'd think o' me in your mind, if I'd dhrink it.” “The shell's not half full.” “I wouldn't brake my oath for all the whiskey in the kingdom; so don't ax me. It's neither right nor proper of you to force it an me.”