“I am a good deal better, but feel oppressed in my chest, and don’t expect to be altogether right and sprightly, as a youth in his seventy-ninth year ought to be, till the sun has had time enough to air the wind, and these occasional sharp fits of Winter have finally disappeared. However, I have been doing some work here (i. e. Council Office,) to-day; and I did some Miss Mitford before I left home this morning.
“In one of Mrs. Hoare’s letters there is, in very fair writing, the word ‘fritillaries,’—a plant, a wild plant; do you know anything about such a creature?
“The far-seeing world, who know what the Devil intends to do
next, are all prophesying a ‘No-
| AN IRISH STORY. | 293 |
“A story: ‘Oh! Pat; and what do ye think will be your feelings at the Day of Judgment, when you meet Mrs. Mahoney, and the pig you stole from her, face to face?’ ‘Does your Reverence think the pig will be there?’ ‘Ay, indeed will he; and what will ye say then?’ ‘I shall say, your Reverence, “Mrs. Mahoney, dear, here’s the pig that I borrowed of ye, and I’m mighty glad to have this opportunity of restoring him!’”
“We must shorten the early part of Miss Mitford’s life to bring it into proportion with the latter part. This can easily be done by leaving out some of the poetry, and cutting shorter her letters to Sir W. Elford; or rather abridging those epistles into letters.
“I have nothing more to say.
“Riddle:—I give you £100, and you are to give me
one hundred animals. The cows cost £5, the pigs £1, and the hens one
shilling each. How
| 294 | HEAT OF THE WEATHER. |
