"An' what d'ye mane be standin' there, an' niver a word out o' ye in answer to the lady, ye ill-mannered caubogue?" cries his mother, deeply incensed. The laughter is all gone from her face, and her eyes are aflame. "What brought ye in at all, ye ugly spalpeen, if ye came without a civil tongue in yer head?" "I came to see the baby an' to get me dinner," says the boy, with hanging head, his silence arising more from shyness than sullenness. The potatoes have just been lifted from the fire by Mrs. Moloney, and are steaming in a distant corner. Paudheen looks wistfully towards them. "Dickens a sign or taste ye'll get, then, if only to tache ye better manners. Be off, now, an' don't let me see ye agin." "I'm hungry," says the boy, tears coming into his eyes. "Oh, Mrs. Daly!" says Monica, in a distressed tone. "A deal o' harm it will do him to be hungry, thin!" says the culprit's mother, with an angry voice, but with visible signs of relenting in her handsome eyes. "Be off wid ye now, I tell ye." This is the last burst of the storm. As the urchin creeps crestfallen towards the doorway her rage dies, its death being as sudden as its birth. "Come back here!" she cries, inconsistently. "What d'ye mane be takin' me at me word like that? Come back, I tell ye, an' go an' ate something, ye crathur. How dare ye behave as if I was a bad mother to ye?" The boy comes back, and, raising his bonny head, smiles at her fondly but audaciously. "Look at him, now, the blackguard," says the mother, returning the smile in kind. "Was there ever the like of him? Go an' ate yer praties now, and thank yer stars Miss Monica was here to say a good word for ye." Paddy, glad of his rescue, casts a shy glance at Monica, and then, going over to where his grandmother and the pot of potatoes rest side by side, sits down (close cuddled up to the old dame) to fill his little empty stomach with as many of those esculent roots as he can manage, which, in truth, is the poor child's only dinner from year's end to year's end. And yet it is a remarkable fact that, in spite of this scanty fare, the Irish peasant, when come to man's estate, is ever strong and vigorous and well grown. And who shall say he hasn't done his queen good service, too, on many a battle-field? and even in these latter days, when sad rebellion racks our land, has not his name been worthy of honorable mention on the plains of Tel-el-Kebir? "I don't think he _looks_ like a bad boy, Mrs. Daly," says Monica, reflectively, gazing at the liberated Paddy.