The pedlar, as she entered, threw a hasty glance at her, perceived that she shook down her luxuriant hair, which had been disarranged by a branch of thorn that was caught in it while stretching over the hedge.

She at once recognized him, and blushed deeply; but he seemed altogether to have forgotten her.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "well, that I may be blest, but it's many a long day since I seen such a head o' hair as that! Holy St.Countryman, but it's a beauty.

Musha, a _Ora Gal_, maybe you'll dispose of it, for, in troth, if ever a face livin' could afford to part with its best ornament, your's is that one." Mave smiled and blushed at the compliment, and the pedlar eyed her apparently with a mixed feeling of admiration and compassion.
"No," she replied, "I haven't any desire to part with it." "You had the sickness, maybe ?" "Thanks be to the mercy of God," she fervently exclaimed, "no one in this family has had it yet." "Well, achora," he continued, "if you take my advice you'll dispose of it, in regard that if the sickness--which may God prevent--should come, it will be well for you to have it off you.

If you sell it, I'll give you either money or value for it; for indeed, an' truth it flogs all I've seen this many a day." "They say," observed her mother, "that it's not lucky to sell one's hair, and whether it's true or not I don't know; but I'm tould for a sartinty, that there's not a girl that ever sould it but was sure to catch the sickness." "I know that there's truth in that," said Jerry himself.

"There's Sally Hacket, and Mary Geoghegan, and Katy Dowdall, all sould it, and not one of them escaped the sickness.