“Content, in truth! Is it content to live upon potatoes and salt? I, that am your lawful wife! And you, that are an O’Dougherty too, to let your lady be demeaned and looked down upon, as she will be now, even by them that are sprung up from nothing since yesterday. There’s Mrs. Gray, over yonder at Rosanna, living on your own land: look at her and look at me! and see what a difference there is!” “Some difference there surely is,” said Simon. “Some difference there surely is,” repeated Mrs. O’Dougherty, raising her voice to the shrillest note of objurgation; for she was provoked by a sigh that escaped Simon, as he pronounced his reply, or rather his acceding sentence. Nothing, in some cases, provokes a female so much as agreeing with her. “And if there is some difference betwixt me and Mrs. Gray, should be glad to know whose fault that is?” “So should I, Mrs. O’Dougherty.” “Then I’ll tell you, instantly, whose fault it is, Mr. O’Dougherty: the fault is your own, Mr. O’Dougherty. No, the fault is mine, Mr. O’Dougherty, for marrying you, or consorting with you at all. If I had been matched to an active, industrious man, like Mr. Gray, I might have been as well in the world and better than Mrs. Gray; for I should become a fortune better than she, or any of her seed, breed, or generation; and it’s a scandal in the face of the world, and all the world says so, it’s a scandal to see them Grays flourishing and settling a colony, there at Rosanna, at our expense!” “Not at our expense, my dear, for you know we made nothing of either tan-yard or mill; and now they pay us 30_l_. a year, and that punctually too. What should we do without it, now we have lost the place in the revenue? I am sure, I think we were very lucky to get such tenants as the Grays.” “In truth, I think no such thing; for if you had been blessed with the sense of a midge, you might have done all they have done yourself: and then what a different way your lawful wife and family would have been in! I am sure I wish it had pleased the saints above to have married me, when they were about it, to such a man as farmer Gray or his sons.” “As for the sons,” said Simon, “they are a little out of the way in point of age, but to farmer Gray I see no objection in life: and if he sees none, and will change wives, I’m sure, Ally, I shall be content.” The sort of composure and dry humour with which Simon made this last speech overcame the small remains of Mrs. O’Dougherty’s patience: she burst into a passion of tears; and from this hour, it being now past eleven o’clock at night, from this hour till six in the morning she never ceased weeping, wailing, and upbraiding. Simon rose from his sleepless bed, saying, “The saints above, as you call them, must take care of you now, Ally, any how; for I’m fairly tired out: so I must go a-hunting or a-shooting with my friend, Sir Hyacinth O’Brien, to recruit my spirits.”