In the morning, however, I was determined to let him see that I was not going to put up with his tantrums, indeed; so I never spoke to him all breakfast-time, and although he made, I should say, some dozen advances to me, yet I wasn’t to be carneyed over in that way I could tell him, and so merely gave him a plain “Yes” or “No,” as short and snappishly as I could; consequently, my gentleman hadn’t a very pleasant time of it, and went off to business quite early, thoroughly ashamed of himself, I could see. Nor did I choose to make it up with Mr. Sk--n--st--n until the day came for him to go over the housekeeping expenses, when, as dear Edward paid the money without a single question, I thought I might as well forgive him. Of course these little breezes didn’t make me relish Miss Norah Connor’s airs any the better, though she certainly did her work very well, and I couldn’t find any fault with her about that. Still, as I felt that she was destroying my peace of mind, and was really _so_ impudent to me, I couldn’t help considering it a duty I owed to my husband to get rid of her as quickly as I could. As for her being an excellent servant too, why of course I knew there was as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it; and besides, Norah Connor really appeared to me to have been brought up at Billingsgate. But in a short time _that_ Norah gave me such a dose, that not knowing what she might treat me to after it, I really should have been worse than a child if I had taken it quietly. For one afternoon I was in the kitchen, and if the hussey didn’t spill a whole basinful of water on the floor, and then actually seemed in no way inclined to wipe up the slop on the boards, so I begged she would just take a cloth, and do it immediately. But the minx replied, “Och! sure an’ don’t it always soak in, in my counthry,” which was a good deal more than I felt I ought to put up with. So I told her very plainly, “that her country, then, whatever it was, must be a filthy dirty place, and only fit for a set of pigs to wallow in.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than she turned round sharp upon me, and shrieking out, “Hoo! hubbaboo!” (or some such savage gibberish), seized the kitchen carving-knife, which was unfortunately lying on the table, and kept brandishing it over her head, crying out, “Hurrah for ould Ireland! the first jim of the sa!--and a yard of cowld steel for them as spakes agin’ her!” Then she set to work, chasing me round and round the kitchen table, jumping up in the air all the while, and screaming like one of the celebrated wild cats of Kilkenny. I flew like lightning, and she came after me like anything. I declare the vixen kept so close to my heels, that I expected every minute to feel the knife run into me between my shoulders, just where I had been cupped when I was a child; and the worst of it was there wasn’t even so much as a dish-cover or a saucepan-lid near at hand that I might