"Is his reverence up, ma'am?" again enquired Bosthoon.

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"I believe he is,” replied the housekeeper: "Is any thing wrong, dear?" "Be gorra there's too much wrong," said Bosthoon. “Would you be plazed ma'am to tell his reverence that I want very badly to spake a word wid him."

He was accordingly brought into the kitchen; and in about a quarter of an hour was told by the housekeeper that his reverence had risen, and was waiting to see him in the parlour.

"What's your name?" said Father M'Flewsther, as he entered.

"Bosthoon M'Flail, sir; a son of ould Kippeen's-wid the help o' God, and submission to your reverence."

And what do you want with me?" said the priest -" but, in the first place, take a chair, and don't stand twisting your long body and short jacket, as if your shirt was a blister looking into the floor, too, as if you had second sight-and except you can com. mand a change of hat, you might as well not crush that excuse into atoms, as you're doing."

A blank and grotesque smile settled upon the huge white eye-brows of Bosthoon.

"What do you want with me?" again enquired the priest.

"Why, plase your reverence, it isn't my fau't, any how. I'm willin' up to this minute to rightify her-but, barrin' she saves her own carrecther, and marries me, I wont stay in the counthryso, as there's no hope of that, I want a twistimonial from your reverence to America."

"What the dickens are you after, Bosthoon?"

me!"

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Molshy M'Fun, sir-God pardon

Bosthoon, my good boy, explain yourself?"

"Be gorra, it's past that, your reverence. But she wont be brought an by common sinse, good or bad, an' I willin' to marry her, an' to do for her; how-and-iver, if she doesn't choose to succum', it can't be helped. I was ready to make an honest woman of her-an' she knows that-and if your reverence would put into the twistimonial, that I'm a well-behaved boy, of good morals, and an honest father's son, it would sarve me very much beyant. They say, sir, there's great feedin' all out there-six males a day, I hear, an' a dollard wage-an' that the sarvints an' masthers, blacks an', whites, all sit at the same scrahag.”

"The fact is, you sheep-faced scoundrel"

"Too innocent-lookin', your reverence, I am no doubt-but, upon my padereens, not more so to the eye than I am widin here"-placing his huge paw upon his stomach.

"Silence, Bosthoon, and hear me.-The fact is, that you have destroyed the girl, and ruined her reputation; and after having done this, you now want to abscond, and go to America."

Bosthoon scratched behind his ear, as if his conscience winced to the very core at this home charge from the priest. He looked abashed at his reverence for a moment, then at the window, then at the grate, and finally into the bottom of his own hat, as if he expected to find there some relief from the deep and damning embarrassment into which he made the priest believe that his reverence's observation had thrown him.

The reader, in the mean time, is to bear in mind, that Bosthoon had never yet opened his lips to my aunt Molshy; and that, of course, the whole material of the dialogue between him and the priest was as pure fiction, on his part, as ever proceeded from the imagination of man.

Yes, you villainous he-Gorgonafter having destroyed the girl-a dacent girl, too-I know the M'Funs well-I am her confessor, you reprobate, and acquainted with the whole of it ;-after having destroyed her, you want to get a character from me, and then to run off to America, and aban don her."

"Dar an afrin neev, I don't, if she will marry me but if she stands out this way

"No wonder for her to stand out, you blackguard, after what has happened. But why should she refuse to marry you now?"

Why, be gorra, sir, she stands up for a single life, God pardon her."

"Well-how is that?"

"She says, your reverence, that she will never marry me or any one elsethat she'll live single, and a vargin, all her life to come-then, agin, even if I do go to America, I am sure my father, for my sake, would provide for any charge I might lave behind me. I know he likes grandchildre."

"But I will take very good care," said the worthy priest, "that you shall not leave the country till you are made man and wife; and not even then, unless she goes with you."

" And I am willin' to do it,” replied Bosthoon; "but why should she hould out against the marriage herself? I tould her I'd bring her by force to you, and she said, if I did, she'd deny every word of what I've now said. So, what am I to do?"

"Never mind what she says," said the credulous priest; "haul her down here, and I'll soon give you a legitimate authority over ber."

Bosthoon, however, who had a proper regard for his own neck, felt not the slightest inclination to follow the priest's advice. "No-no," he replied, "if she wont do it willinly, the divil a one o' me will force her. She may take her way, an' I'll take mine. As to the twistimonial, if your reverence wont give it, why, be gorra, I must only do without it. In the mane time, I hope that your reverence, for my sake, as I'm about lavin' the counthry, wont be sayin' any thing regardin' what passed betune us-wishin' your reverence a good mornin'!"

Bosthoon's point was gained; for ere three days had elapsed the worthy priest, in the height of his indignation against his baseness and treachery, had sent the history of my aunt Molshy's fabricated weakness to the uttermost ends of that and the adjoining parishes. In fact, Bosthoon had made Father M'Flewsther himself the principal criminal in the scandal; and the upshot was, that the M'Funs finding aunt Molshy's character blown upon, and by such a competent authority as the priest of the parish, deemed it better, as there was no calling in the scandal, to marry her to Bosthoon at once; and we need scarcely add, that Father M'Flewsther's advice strongly contributed to fix them in this resolution.

Such was the simplicity of Bosthoon M'Flail and Father Blackthorn was his son.

It is unnecessary to give a detail of their wedding, which, indeed, presented the usual traits to be found at such festivities in Ireland-that is to say, a pleasant alternation of mirth and pugnacity. It could not indeed pass with out this necessary admixture of enjoyment. The M'Flails, from a spirit of family pride, and a determination to preserve the consistency of their character, could not allow the M'Funs to have it all their own way. Nor could the M⭑Funs, on the contrary, allow the M+Flails to turn such a scene of convivial hilarity into a continuous battle.

The opposition, therefore, between the contending principles of the two parties, produced those agreeable lights and shadows-in other words, that fun and fighting, which so eminently distinguish the Irish climate and the Irish heart from all others with which I happen to be acquainted, or of which I have ever read.

In other countries, it is true, and I am forced to admit it, that Bosthoon's most signal exploit, at his own wedding would have been looked on as a kind of small sacrilege. Bosthoon, however, who was not a theologian, and no great shakes of a moralist, felt no remorse in perpetrating the exploit I have alluded to. In plain truth, then, as it was family against family-the M.Flails against the M'Funs, backed by the M'Flummeries on one side, and the M'Scuts on the other-honest Bosthoon, whose sympathy with his new connexion was too fresh to be practical, entertained no scruple at all in giving to his own father-in-law the "crame" of a sound drubbing.— This, however, though looked upon by his relations as heroism of no ordinary character, was inferior to that which Molshy, his bride, acting under an indignant sense of filial duty, achieved for herself. I do not wish to be unpleasantly particular; it is enough to say that Bosthoon went to his nuptial couch that night with a broken head, and that the hand by which it was broken, was the same that had in the early part of the day, plighted to him its troth, when its fair owner promised him love, honour, and obedience. Some marks, I admit, she did receive in thus signalizing herself, but then Bosthoon expressed deep contrition in the course of that night for having inflicted them, and Molshy assured him she was perfectly satisfied.

From this forward, they lived harmoniously enough together. The gambolings of Bosthoon during the honey-moon, though uncouth, were not disagreeable to his strapping bride. Taking them, therefore, each as the representative of their class, it is enough to say that they were very well paired, and that she as a M'Fun was quite a match for him as a M'Flail.

In this way things went on well enough on both sides, for about two months, when one evening as Bosthoon and his wife sat together enjoying a comfortable tete-a-tete, he noticed a peculiar embarrassment of manner in

his amiable partner for which he could not account. He saw very well that the bashful creature was labouring under some extraordinary secret which she felt a blushing reluctance to disclose. Bosthoon, of course, was sorely puzzled as to what the nature of her communication could be, for as he had little knowledge of the sex, or of their teasing agreeable moods and whinis, so was he signally deficient in that sagacity which so often enables wit to anticipate experience. Though de ficient in penetration, however, he was no fool, and consequently took a most excellent method of making her abandon that coquettish fondness which she seemed disposed to work up into nothing less than a mystery. This imperturbable indifference on his part succeeded. Molshy, after patting him on the cheek, and playfully shaking a pair of ears (his, of course,) nearly equal to Bottom's, at length said,

Bosthoon, darlin."

"Well, Molsh."

Molsh hung down her head, first giving him a timid, pleasant, significant, roguish glance from the tail of her eye, after which she placed the palm of her right hand on that of her left, and began to inspect the joints of her fingers, passing her left thumb over the back of the right hand, which was uppermost, and seeming to examine them joint by joint.

"What wor you goin to say, my thracle ?"

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'Oh, bad scran to you, Bosthoon! you'r the dickens!"

How, darlin ?"

"Faith, I suspected as much by reason of that last one. It would cover three weeks and nine days any how ; but why have I no curosity, goslin ?” "Bekase, you hav'n't."

"Well, sure I'm the less like a woman, Molsh."

Here his indifference to her secret induced Molshy to show strong symptoms of getting pathetic, which is always the dernier resort of a woman. You may thrate me as bad as you plase, Bosthoon, but I'm not in a state to be"

Here her tears came with great fluency, and Bosthoon's indolence was actually stirred into something like interest in consequence of her emotion.

"But darlin," he replied, tell me→→→ tell your own Bosthoon, at wanst what is wrong?"

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Wrong," said Molshy, drying her eyes, and with something of a proud but indignant feeling, "wrong, there's nothing wrong;" then all at once, gliding into caresses and endearments, she added tenderly,

No, darlin, jewel-uo, my own Bosthoon, there's nothing wrong wid me-no, jewel, but the conthrairy."

Her voice, while uttering these words, sank by degrees into a tone of most affectionate and significant confidence.

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Faith," said the obtuse husband, "I'm as proud as a paycock that there's nothing wrong wid you. Why you frightened the life out o'me. I thought you had cotch this complaint that's goin."

Molshy, seeing that all the usual inuendoes in such cases were absolutely lost upon him, bent her face, and placing her lips to his ear, said,

"Whisper, jewel."

She must have disclosed something of singular importance, for Bosthoon on hearing it, raised his head, and fastening his grey eyes upon her with a grin of delight, that raised his white heavy brows halfway up his forehead, and distending his mouth chuckle after chuckle, until it almost reached those ears the reader wots of, exclaimed,

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Tundher and whiskey, do you tell

me so ?"

"Yes, I do, Bosthoon. Yes, I do, darlin, jewel, and now don't you like me betther than ever? Don't You now? Tell me, Bosthoon, darlin?"

There was no verbal reply given to this query, but a powerful grappling

match immediately took place, which from the loudness and frequency of the smacks, bore a strong resemblance to what is called a running fire in a regiment of cavalry.

We cannot dwell long upon this scene, for the fact is, that the billings, and coings, and palmings, and nursings, and whisperings, and squeezings, and pressures, with the other nonsensical endearments that make the honey-moon look like a beslobbered cake of liquorice in the hands of two over-grown children, may all do very well in the proper place, but to a spectator they are in the inean time anything but delicate or agreeable.

Still we cannot help assuring our readers that when this billing match between Bosthoon and Molshy was over, he once again expanded his cavernous mouth into a gap that resembled the cleft of an earthquake, and raising his huge brows one after another like the lumbering portcullis of a drawbridge, at the same time exposing the whites of his eyes, he gazed upon ber with an ogle which we can compare to nothing except the disconsolate look of a dying calf.

Molshy in return gave him a diffident but playful pat on the face, which were it not for a further disclosure that she had to make, would have led to a repetition of the scene we have declined to describe as being rather too sweet for mere lookers-on.

Bosthoon, behave, dear-behave now. Sure I have more to tell you." "What! more good news of the same kind; begad you're worth goold."

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No, jewel, its consarnin' my health for the last two or three days. You know, yourself, I never cared much about what I'm spakin' of, although I could take an odd sup now and thin whin I got it."

"A sup o' what, my thracle ?" "Arra, Bosthoon, don't you see what I mane ?"

Faith, I don't think I do, but let us hear it first, and then I may get a glimpse of it."

"I feel quare for a sup o' whiskey." "You want a sup of whiskey. Well an you must get it I'll thrate you to share of a naggin, or half a pint in the market on next Saturday. Wont that be something? Buds! woman, couldn't you tell me at wanst that you wanted it?"

Is it me want it, Bosthoon, jewel!

Sure it wouldn't be right to refuse it to me now, Bosthoon-now man alive, I mightn't, or somebody else mightn't be the better of not getting it; ouly two of us!—the sorrow one but you're bright.”

Bosthoon expanded his grey eyes, and first looked at Molshy with a sadly puzzled countenance, after which he cast a bewildered glance slowly about the room, and again fixed his eyes on Molsh without appearing one whit the wiser. Molsh felt that she was reduced to the alternative as before of becoming her own interpreter; so bending her face again, and putting her lips to his ear, she said,

"Bosthoon, whisper jewel."

And in a few words she conveyed the communication and received an answer similar to the last.

Tundher and whiskey, Molsh, my thracle, do you tell me so."

"Yes I do, and I feel very quare for want of a sup."

Now, the reader ignorant of physiology may not see the direct bearing which the circumstances I am now detailing are calculated to have on the life and character of him who is the subject of my autobiography. This, however, will be better explained by what I am about to narrate.

Bosthoon no sooner understood the nature of the longing desire expressed by Molshy for the sup of whiskey, than he put a pint bottle in his pocket and went off to Peter Byrne's public house, at the cross-roads, for the purpose of procuring the desired beverage for her.

The truth is, however, that one cause of his alacrity to comply with the wishes of his wife proceeded from the simple fact that from the moment she mentioned the whiskey, he felt his own