“I’m glad to hear you say ye are, so I am,” she continued. “But sure an’ you’re my misthress, and I wont let ye be afther lowerin’ yersilf by askin’ for my pardin, as ye are. So come, say no more about it, mavourneen; but just thry to ate a bit, if it’s the smallest taste in life now, or ye’ll go makin’ yersilf out an’ out ill for my sake.” And really and truly the stupid thing would keep bothering me so, that being frightened out of my wits lest I should offend her again, I had to try and eat some of the rabbit, (which was very delicious,) nor would she leave me until she had made me drink off a glass of wine, (which certainly did me a great deal of good.) Indeed, altogether, the curious compound of a woman pitied me so, and was so kind and attentive to me, that I wished to goodness gracious she could only get rid of her horrible temper, and then I should not be obliged to prevail upon Edward to turn her out of the house, as I must. The next morning, I took an opportunity, at breakfast, of getting my husband to listen to what Norah had done to me; and then, if he hadn’t the coolness to ask me why I had not told him all about it when he came home to dinner the day before. But I made him heartily ashamed of himself by reminding him that he had bounced out of the house like a cracker directly I opened my mouth to him on the subject. Whereupon he remarked that I had cried “Wolf” so often, that there was no knowing when I was really in trouble. However, though Mr. Sk--n--st--n has his little peculiarities, still I must say he is not so very bad a man at heart, after all, for he looked at Norah’s shameful goings on towards me in a very proper light, observing, that after what I had said to a woman of her passionate disposition, it was a mercy that she hadn’t killed me on the spot. Though, of course, he couldn’t let well alone, but must go and side with Miss Norah in the end; for he told me that I ought not to have insulted the girl in the way I had, and that if, in her anger, she had put an end to my life--though the woman would have suffered for it--still _I_ should have been nearly as much to blame as _she_ was; adding, that it really struck him, that if I happened to get hold of a good, honest, industrious servant, who merely wanted to be humoured a little, that I must needs go driving continually at her weak point, until I forced her out of the house; for I seemed to think that the wages were all that was due from the mistress to her servants, forgetting that I had undertaken to make my house their home, and that if I stripped it of all the attributes of one, and converted it into a prison instead, where they were to see no friends, and be kept to so many months’ hard labour, why, it was only natural that they, poor things, finding I had forgotten my duty to them, should, in their turn, forget their duty to me. Besides, he added, I should remember that though there was little or no excuse