certainly the better farmer; and scarcely an improvement took place in his little holding which might not be traced to Ellish. In the course of a couple of years she bought him a horse, and Peter was enabled, to join with a neighbor, who had another. Each had a plough and tackle, so that here was a little team made up, the half of which belonged to Peter. By this means they ploughed week about, until their crops were got down. Peter finding his farm doing well, began to feel a kind of rivalship with his wife--that is to say, she first suggested the principle, and afterwards contrived to make him imagine that it was originally his own. “The sarra one o' you, Pettier,” she exclaimed to him one day, “but's batin' me out an' out. Why, you're the very dickins at the farmin', so you are. Faix, I suppose, if you go an this way much longer, that you'll be thinkin' of another farm, in regard that we have some guineas together. Pettier, did you ever think of it, abouchal?” “To be sure, I did, you beauty; an' amn't I in fifty notions to take Harry Neal's land, that jist lies alongside of our own.” “Faix, an' you're right, maybe; but if it's strivin' again me you are, you may give it over: I tell you, I'll have more money made afore this time twelvemonth than you will.” “Arrah, is it jokin' you are? More money? Would you advise me to take Harry's land? Tell me that first, you phanix, an' thin I'm your man!” “Faix, take your own coorse, avourneen. If you get a lase of it at a fair rint, I'll buy another horse, any how. Isn't that doin' the thing dacent'?” “More power to you, Ellish! I'll hold you a crown, I pay you the price o' the horse afore this time twelvemonth.” “Done! The sarra be off me but done!--an' here's Barny Dillon an' Katty Hacket to bear witness.” “Sure enough we will,” said Barny, the servant. “I'll back the misthress any money,” replied the maid. “Two to one on the masther,” said the man. “Whoo! our side o' the house for ever! Come, Pether, hould up your head, there's money bid for you!” “Ellish, I'll fight for you ankle deep,” said Katty--“depind your life an me.” “In the name o' goodness, thin, it's a bargain,” said Ellish; “an' at the end o' the year, if we're spared, we'll see what we'll see. We'll have among ourselves a little sup o' tay, plase goodness, an' we'll be comfortable. Now, Barny, go an' draw home thim phaties from the pits while the day's fine; and Katty, a colleen, bring in some wather, till we get the pig killed and scalded--it'll hardly have time to be good bacon for the big markets at Christmas. I don't wish,” she continued, “to keep it back from them that we have a thrifle o' money. One always does betther when it's known that they're not strugglin'. There's Nelly Cummins, an' her customers is lavin' her, an' dalin' wid me, bekase she's goin' down in business. Ay an', Pether, ahagur, it's the way o' the world.”