ABSTRACT
"Well!" exclaimed Michael Leahy, as he entered his cottage – "well! the Lord be praised! – I've seen a powerful deal of happiness this day, one way or the other. Above, at the big house, the mistress was giving out the medicine, and food, with her own two blessed hands, to half the parish; there she was, at the closet window, slaving herself for the poor – that's Christianity!" He proceeded to shake the snow from his "big coat," and hang it up. "It's a powdering night of snow, as ever came out of the heavens; but, any how, we have a roof to shelter us, thank God! – to say nothin' o' the sod o' turf, and the boiling pratees; and the master gave me a good quarter o' tobaccy; so now, Norry, lay by your spinning, and let's have our bit o' supper."
