Page 376 - The snake's pass

364 — the snake's pass.
ball by speaking most beautifully of our own worthiness,
and of how honestly and honourably each had won the
other, and of the long life and happiness that lay, he
hoped and believed, before us. Then Joyce spoke a few
manly words of his love for his daughter and his pride
in her. The tears were in his eyes when he said how
his one regret in life was that her dear mother had to
look down from Heaven her approval on this day, instead
of sharing it amongst us as the best of mothers and
the best of women. Then Norah turned to him and
laid her head on his breast and cried a little—not un-
happily, but happily, as a bride should cry at leaving
those she loves for one she loves better still.
Of course both the lawyers spoke, and Eugene said a
few words bashfully. I was about to reply to them all,
when Andy got up and crystallized the situation in a few
words :
" Miss Norah an' yer 'an'r, I'd like, if I might make
so bould, to say a wurrd fur all the men and weemen in
Ireland that ayther iv yez iver kem across. I often heerd
iv fairies, an' Masther Art knows well how he hunted
wan from the top iv Knocknacar to the top iv Knock -
calltecrore, and I won't say a wurrd about the kind iv a
fairy he wanted to find—not even in her quare kind
iv an eye—bekase I might be overlooked, as the masther
was ; and more betoken, since I kem here Masther Dick
has tould me that I'm to be yer 'an'r's Irish coachman.
Hurroo! an' I might get evicted from that same houldin'
fur me impidence in tellin' tales iv the Masther before