Year after year St. Patrick’s day came about, without her ever finding a farthing by all her groping; and as she was always idle, she grew poorer and poorer. Besides, to comfort herself for her disappointments, and to give her spirits for fresh searches, she took to drinking. She sold all she had by degrees; but still she fancied that the lucky day would come sooner or later, _that would pay for all_. Goody Grope, however, reached her sixtieth year, without ever seeing this lucky day; and now, in her old age, she was a beggar, without a house to shelter her, a bed to lie on, or food to put into her mouth, but what she begged from the charity of those who had trusted more than she had to industry and less to _luck_. “Ah, Mary, honey! give me a potato and a sup of something, for the love o’ mercy; for not a bit have I had all day, except half a glass of whisky and a halfpenny worth of tobacco!” Mary immediately set before her some milk, and picked a good potato out of the bowl for her. She was sorry to see such an old woman in such a wretched condition. Goody Grope said she would rather have spirits of some kind or other than milk; but Mary had no spirits to give her; so she sat herself down close to the fire, and after she had sighed and groaned and smoked for some time, she said to Mary, “Well, and what have you done with the treasure you had the luck to find?” Mary told her that she had carried it to Mr. Hopkins, the agent. “That’s not what I would have done in your place,” replied the old woman. “When good luck came to you, what a shame to turn your back upon it! But it is idle talking of what’s done—that’s past; but I’ll try my luck in this here castle before next St. Patrick’s day comes about. I was told it was more than twenty miles from our bog or I would have been here long ago; but better late than never.” Mary was much alarmed, and not without reason, at this speech; for she knew that if Goody Grope once set to work at the foundation of the old castle of Rossmore, she would soon bring it all down. It was in vain to talk to Goody Grope of the danger of burying herself under the ruins, or of the improbability of her meeting with another pot of gold coins. She set her elbow upon her knees, and stopping her ears with her hands bid Mary and her sisters not to waste their breath advising their elders; for that, let them say what they would, she would fall to work the next morning, “_barring_ you’ll make it worth my while to let it alone.” “And what will make it worth your while to let it alone?” said Mary; for she saw that she must either get into a quarrel or give up her habitation, or comply with the conditions of this provoking old woman.