All Irish
women have a dread of striopachas. It's the only thing that
frights them; I manes the wild Irish, for as for the quality women
I have heard they are no bit better than the English. Come, yere
hanner, let's talk of something else."
"You were saying now that you were thinking of leaving off fortune-
telling and buying things of servants. Do you mean to depend upon
your needles alone?"
"No; I am thinking of leaving off tramping altogether and going to
the Tir na Siar."
"Isn't that America?"
"It is, yere hanner; the land of the west is America."
"A long way for a lone girl."
"I should not be alone, yere hanner; I should be wid my uncle
Tourlough and his wife."
"Are they going to America?"
"They are, yere hanner; they intends leaving off business and going
to America next spring."
"It will cost money."
"It will, yere hanner; but they have got money, and so have I."
"Is it because business is slack that you are thinking of going to
America?"
"Oh no, yere hanner; we wish to go there in order to get rid of old
ways and habits, amongst which are fortune-telling and buying
things of sarvants, which yere hanner was jist now checking me
wid."
"And can't you get rid of them here?"
"We cannot, yere hanner.
