or wash anything clean, though you were to put all the soap in Cork into it.  Well, pay attintiou, and I’ll tell you.—­Mrs. Delany, can’t you keep your child quiet while I’m spaking?—­It happened a long while ago, that Saint Fineen, a holy and devout Christian, lived all alone, convaynient to the well; there he was to be found ever and always praying and reading his breviary upon a cowld stone that lay beside it.  Onluckily enough, there lived also in the neighbourhood a callieen dhas[3] called Morieen, and this Morieen had a fashion of coming down to the well every morning, at sunrise, to wash her legs and feet; and, by all accounts, you couldn’t meet a whiter or shapelier pair from this to Bantry.  Saint Fineen, however, was so disthracted in his heavenly meditations, poor man! that he never once looked at them; but kept his eyes fast on his holy books, while Morieen was rubbing and lathering away, till the legs used to look like two beautiful pieces of alabasther in the clear water.  Matters went on this way for some time, Morieen coming regular to the well, till one fine morning, as she stepped into the water, without minding what she was about, she struck her foot against a a stone and cut it.

    [1] Pattern—­a corruption of Patron—­means, in Ireland, the
        anniversary of the Saint to whom a holy well has been
        consecrated, on which day the peasantry make pilgrimages to the
        well.

    [2] Beads

    [3] Pretty girl

“‘Oh!  Millia murdher!  What’ll I do?’ cried the callieen, in the pitifulles voice you ever heard.

“‘What’s the matter?’ said Saint Fineen.

“‘I’ve cut my foot agin this misfortinat stone,’ says she, making answer.

“Then Saint Fineen lifted up his eyes from his blessed book, and he saw Morieen’s legs and feet.

“‘Oh!  Morieen!’ says he, after looking awhile at them, ’what white legs you have got!’

“‘Have I?’ says she, laughing, ‘and how do you know that?’

“Immediately the Saint remimbered himself, and being full of remorse and conthrition for his fault, he laid his commands upon the well, that its water should never wash anything white again.—­and, as I mentioned before, all the soap in Ireland wouldn’t raise a lather on it since.  Now that’s the thrue histhory of St. Fineen’s blessed well; and I hope and thrust it will be a saysonable and premonitory lesson to all the young men that hears me, not to fall into the vaynial sin of admiring the white legs of the girls.”

As soon as his reverence paused, a buzz of admiration ran through the chapel, accompanied by that peculiar rapid noise made by the lower class of an Irish Roman Catholic congregation, when their feelings of awe, astonishment, or piety, are excited by the preacher.[4]

    [4] This sound, which is produced by a quick motion of the tongue
        against the teeth and roof of the mouth, may be expressed thus;
        “tth, tth, tth, tth, tth.”