“Throth, an’ I’m proud to hear it. Och! och! ‘Jackson’s mornin’ brush!’ and it was she that _could_ do it. Sure I remimber her wedding-day like yestherday. Ay, far an’ near her fame wint as a dancer, an’ the clanest-made girl that ever came from Lisbuie. Like yestherday do I remimber it, an’ how the squire himself an’ the ladies from the Big House came down to see herself an’ your father, the bride and groom--an’ it wasn’t on every hill head you’d get sich a couple--dancin’ the same ‘Jackson’s mornin’ brush.’ Oh! it was far and near her fame wint for dancin’ that.--An’ is there no news wid you, Bhried, at all at all?” “The sorra word, Rose: where ud I get news? Sure it’s yourself that’s always on the fut that ought to have the news for _us_, Rose alive.” “An’ maybe I have too. I was spaikin’ to a friend o’ mine about you the other day.” “A friend o’ yours, Rose! Why, what friend could it be?” “A friend o’ mine--ay, an’ of yours too. Maybe you have more friends than you think, Biddy--and kind ones too, as far as wishin’ you well goes, ’tany rate. Ay have you, faix, an’ friends that e’er a girl in the parish might be proud to hear named in the one day wid her. Awouh!” “Bedad we’re in luck, thin, for that’s more than I knew of. An’ who may these great friends of ours be, Rose?” “Awouh! Faix, as dacent a boy as ever broke bread the same boy is, ‘and,’ says he, ‘if I had goold in bushelfuls, I’d think it too little for that girl;’ but, poor lad, he’s not aisy or happy in his mind in regard o’ that. ‘I’m afeard,’ says he, ‘that she’d put scorn upon me, an’ not think me her aiquals. An’ no more I am,’ says he again, ‘for where, afther all, would you get the likes of Biddy Sullivan?’--Poor boy! throth my heart aches for him!” “Well, can’t you fall in love wid him yourself, Rose, whoever he is?” “Indeed, an’ if I was at your age, it would be no shame to me to do so; but, to tell you the thruth, the sorra often ever the likes of Paul Heffernan came acrass me.” “Paul Heffernan! Why, Rose,” replied Biddy, smiling with the assumed lightness of indifference, “is that your beauty? If it is, why, keep him, an’ make much of him.” “Oh, wurrah! the differ there is between the hearts an’ tongues of some people--one from another--an’ the way they spaik behind others’ backs! Well, well, I’m sure that wasn’t the way he spoke of you, Biddy; an’ God forgive you for runnin’ down the poor boy as you’re doin’. Trogs! I believe you’re the only girl would do it.” “Who, me! I’m not runnin’ him down. I’m neither runnin’ him up nor down. I have neither good nor bad to say about him--the boy’s a black sthranger to me, barrin’ to know his face.”