“I'll buy you a hat and a pair o' stockins at Christmas.” “Will you, Ellish? Then, by the book, I'll work like a horse.” “I didn't intind to tell you, but I had it laid out for you.” “Faith, you're a beauty, Ellish. What'll we call this young chap that's comin', acushla?” “Now, Pether, none o' your capers. It's time enough when the thing happens to be thinkin' o' that, Glory be to God!” “Well, you may talk as you plase, but I'll call him Pether.” “An' how do you know but he'll be a girl, you omadhawn?” “Murdher alive, ay, sure enough! Faith, I didn't think o' that!” “Well, go up now an' spake to Misther Eccles about the land; maybe somebody else 'ud slip in afore us, an' that wouldn't be pleasant. Here's your brave big coat, put it an; faix, it makes a man of you--gives you a bodagh* look entirely; but that's little to what you'll be yet, wid a blessin'--a Half-Sir, any way.” * This word is used in Ireland sometimes in a good and sometimes in a bad sense. For instance, the peasantry will often say in allusion to some individual who may happen to be talked of, “Hut! he's a dirty bodagh;” but again, you may hear them use it in a sense directly the reverse of this; for instance, “He's a very dacent man, and looks the bodagh entirely.” As to the “Half sir,” he stands about half-way between the bodagh and the gentleman, Bodagh--signifying churl--was applied originally as a term of reproach to the English settlers. In fact, Ellish's industry had already gained a character for both herself and her husband. He got credit for the assiduity and activity to which she trained him: and both were respected for their cleverness in advancing themselves from so poor a beginning to the humble state of independence they had then reached. The farm which Ellish was so anxious to secure was the property of the gentleman from whom they held the other. Being a man of sense and penetration, he fortunately saw--what, indeed, was generally well known--that Peter and Ellish were rising in the world, and that their elevation was the consequence of their own unceasing efforts to become independent, so that industry is in every possible point of view its own reward. So long as the farm was open to competition the offers for it multiplied prodigiously, and rose in equal proportion. Persons not worth twenty shillings in the world offered double the rent which the utmost stretch of ingenuity, even with suitable capital, could pay. New-married couples, with nothing but the strong imaginative hopes peculiar to their country, proposed for it in a most liberal spirit. Men who had been ejected out of their late farms for non-payment of rent, were ready to cultivate this at a rent much above that which, on better land, they were unable to pay. Others, who had been ejected from farm after farm--each of which they undertook as a mere speculation, to furnish them with present subsistence, but without