"'Tis only that yer me host, or I'd be shockin' the ladies with yer nortorious disgraces.

But I'll lave ye live this time, Dave.

Come, spade the partin' guests; we must be movin'." "No ye don't, ye young laddy-buck," he interposed, as St.Vincent started to take Frona down the hill, "'Tis her foster-daddy sees her home this night." McCarthy laughed in his silent way and offered his arm to Frona, while St.Vincent joined in the laugh against himself, dropped back, and joined Miss Mortimer and Baron Courbertin.
"What's this I'm hearin' about you an' Vincent ?" Matt bluntly asked as soon as they had drawn apart from the others.
He looked at her with his keen gray eyes, but she returned the look quite as keenly.
"How should I know what you have been hearing ?" she countered.
"Whin the talk goes round iv a maid an' a man, the one pretty an' the other not unhandsome, both young an' neither married, does it 'token aught but the one thing ?" "Yes ?" "An' the one thing the greatest thing in all the world." "Well ?" Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined to help him.
"Marriage, iv course," he blurted out.

"'Tis said it looks that way with the pair of ye." "But is it said that it _is_ that way ?" "Isn't the looks iv it enough ?" he demanded.
"No; and you are old enough to know better.

Mr.St.Vincent and I--we enjoy each other as friends, that is all.