“Why, Peter, alanna,” said Ellish, soothingly, “what’s comin’ over you, at all, an’ me; goin’ to explain to his honor the outs and ins I of our opinion about the land?  Faix, man, we’re not thinkin’ about you, good or bad.”

“I believe the drop has scarcely left your head yet, Peter,” said the landlord.

“Bud-an’-age, your honor, sure we must have our joke, any how—­doesn’t she deserve it for takin’ the word out o’ my mouth?”

“Whisht, avillish; you’re too cute for us all, Pether.  There’s no use, sir, as I was sayin’, for any one to deny that when they take a farm they do it to make by it, or at the laste to live comfortably an it.  That’s the thruth, your honor, an’ it’s no use to keep it back from you, sir.”

“I perfectly agree with you,” said the landlord.  “It is with these motives that a tenant should wish to occupy land; and it is the duty of every landlord who has his own interest truly at heart, to see that his land be not let at such a rent as will preclude the possibility of comfort or independence on the part of his tenantry.  He who lets his land above its value, merely because people are foolish enough to offer more for it than it is worth, is as great an enemy to himself as he is to the tenant.”

“It’s God’s thruth, sir, an’ it’s nothin’ else but a comfort to hear sich words comin’ from the lips of a gintleman that’s a landlord himself.”

“Ay, an’ a good one, too,” said Peter; “an’ kind father for his honor to be what he is.  Divil resave the family in all Europe”—­

“Thrue for you, avourneen, an’ even’ one knows that.  We wor talkin’ it over, sir, betuxt ourselves, Pether an’ me, an’ he says very cutely, that, upon second thoughts, he offered more nor we could honestly pay out o’ the land:  so”—­

“Faith, it’s a thrue as gospel, your honor.  Says I, ’Ellish, you beauty’”—­

“I thought,” observed Mr. Eccles, “that she sometimes drew the long bow, Peter.”

“Oh, murdher alive, sir, it was only in regard of her crassin’ in an’ whippin’ the word out o’ my mouth, that I wanted to take a rise out of her.  Oh, bedad, sir, no; the crathur’s thruth to the backbone, an’ farther if I’d say it.”

“So, your honor, considherin’ everything, we’re willin’ to offer thirty shillin’s an acre for the farm.  That rint, sir, we’ll be able to pay, wid the help o’ God, for sure we can do nothin’ widout his assistance, glory be to his name!  You’ll get many that’ll offer you more, your honor; but if it ‘ud be plasin’ to you to considher what manes they have to pay it, I think, sir, you’d see, out o’ your own sinse, that it’s not likely people who is gone to the bad, an’ has nothin’ could stand it out long.”

“I wish to heaven,” replied Mr. Eccles, “that every tenant in Ireland possessed your prudence and good sense.  Will you permit me to ask, Mrs. Connell, what capital you and your husband can command provided I should let you have it.”