“Well, Moll, I will be lenient. I have only two or three trifling commissions to give you. First, you must go to the post-office, and then to B----’s for my boots; neither parson nor priest can do without them, you know. Did you ever hear of the ‘priest in his boots,’ Moll?” “Throth I have, an’ danced it too, sur. Go on, yer rivirince: what next?” “Next you are to go to Mr W----, the attorney, with this note, and be sure to wait for his answer. I have no more commissions to-day. But now, Moll, take care of the youngsters; and here they come, ready to overwhelm you!” “Ogh! Lard help me!” ejaculated the poor market-woman, as a troop of laughing, romping children bounded into the room and surrounded her. Now, grandpapa, for a little innocent mischief, privately slid silver to each of the youngsters, to gratify their various tastes in toys, purposely to test poor Moll’s system of mnemonics. The eldest boy was about to give his orders in a loud key, when Moll Miskellagh, with a proper reverence for her own sex, pushed him aside, and desired the “young Miss” to “spaik up first.” “A sixpenny doll, and two dishes for my baby-kitchen,” squeaked miss. “Now, young masther, yours?” “A top, Moll--not a pegging-top, but a humming-top I want.” “A hummin’-top!” cried the market-woman, impatiently; “arrah, what the dhioul is a hummin’-top?” “Why, a humming-top is a-a-a-humming top,” quoth young master, somewhat posed. “It makes a noise this way--hum, hum, hum--for all the world like a droning beetle.” Poor Moll had no acquaintance with any beetle but a sort of wooden instrument with which peasant maidens pound their coarse clothes when washing them at a stream or river; and “a dhronin’ beetle!” she ejaculated, opening wide her small grey eyes, and looking from one to the other for an explanation; while grandpapa, his face bathed with tears from excessive laughter, prepared to make matters clear, but in reality to make “confusion worse confounded.” But the hero of the humming-top thought no one knew its peculiarities so well as himself, and he ended the dilemma by describing a humming-top to be “a great deal larger than a common top, had a square hole in one side, and it was always painted red.” “That’ll do,” said Moll Miskellagh, trying to be satisfied. “I’ll inquire about sitch a thing, any how. An’ now, little masthers, what’s your pleasures?”