“Of course you are, my good woman, of course you are—­but I mean to say, don’t you feel that every moment you live is too short to express your thankfulness to this kind Providence for what he has done?”

“Ah, darlin’, it’s all thrue, he’s very good, he’s mighty kind, so he is.”

“Why then, not acknowledge it in a different manner?” said the parson, with some heat—­“has he not housed you, and fed you, and clothed you?”

“Yes, alanah, he done it all.”

“Well, where is your gratitude for all these mercies?”

“Ah, sure if he did,” said the old crone, roused at length by the importunity of the questioner—­“sure if he did, doesn’t he take it out o’ me in the corns?”

CHAPTER XLIV.

A reminiscence of the East.

The breakfast-table assembled around it the three generations of men who issued from the three subdivisions of the diligence, and presented that motley and mixed assemblage of ranks, ages, and countries, which forms so very amusing a part of a traveller’s experience.

First came the “haute aristocratie” of the coupe, then the middle class of the interieure, and lastly, the tiers etat of the rotonde, with its melange of Jew money-lenders, under-officers and their wives, a Norman nurse with a high cap and a red jupe; while, to close the procession, a German student descended from the roof, with a beard, a blouse, and a meerschaum.  Of such materials was our party made up; and yet, differing in all our objects and interests, we speedily amalgamated into a very social state of intimacy, and chatted away over our breakfast with much good humour and gaiety.  Each person of the number seeming pleased at the momentary opportunity of finding a new listener, save my tall companion of the coupe.  He preserved a dogged silence, unbroken by even a chance expression to the waiter, who observed his wants and supplied them by a species of quick instinct, evidently acquired by practice.  As I could not help feeling somewhat interested about the hermit-like attachment he evinced for solitude, I watched him narrowly for some time, and at length as the “roti” made its appearance before him, after he had helped himself and tasted it, he caught my eye fixed upon him, and looking at me intently for a few seconds, he seemed to be satisfied in some passing doubt he laboured under, as he said with a most peculiar shake of the head—­“No mangez, no mangez cela.”

“Ah,” said I, detecting in my friend’s French his English origin, “you are an Englishman I find.”

“The devil a doubt of it, darlin’,” said he half testily.

“An Irishman, too—­still better,” said I.

“Why then isn’t it strange that my French always shows me to be English, and my English proves me Irish?  It’s lucky for me there’s no going farther any how.”

Delighted to have thus fallen upon a “character,” as the Irishman evidently appeared, I moved my chair towards his; and finding, however, he was not half pleased at the manner in which my acquaintance had been made with him, and knowing his country’s susceptibility of being taken by a story, I resolved to make my advances by narrating a circumstance which had once befallen me in my early life.