hours were over, and once more they went up to their garden, and it was difficult for Daniel to persuade them to leave off at the allotted time. Instead of lounging about before a dram shop, which was their custom in the evening, and often becoming noisy if not riotous, they went quietly to bed and slept soundly. Even Pat Conolly, the overworked boy declared, that although he went very tired to his rest, it was a far different sort of fatigue from that which he nightly felt before.
By the first of June, the whole lot was one beautiful green, bright spot. The land, naturally good, had been so well manured, and carefully laboured, that the seeds could not help coming up freely. But if the truth must be told, Bonny Betty and the three boys' gardens, were more forward than the rest; at least they had a more smiling gay look. And no wonder, for in the first place, women and children will put a few flower seeds in the garden; in the second place, the boys and Betty had the double advantage of working in the afternoons, as Bonny Betty having a little shop, scarcely ever went out to work by the day, and the children only worked half a day in the mills; and lastly Daniel M'Leary lent a hand "to beautify the women and childers' bit garding."
Every one in the neighbourhood had an eye on this project, and every one predicted that the woman and boys might persevere, but that Sammy Oram would give out first, Davy Conolly next, Lazy Jemmy next, and, lastly, Larry M'Gilpin. Sammy Oram was very near verifying this prediction in consequence of his taking it into his head to offer himself as a helpmate to Bonny Betty; but the reader shall hear the progress and end of the affair in a letter received by Mr. Price from Daniel M'Leary.
