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CHAPTER XXIV

How Madam O'Connor tells how lovers throve in the good old days when she was young; and Brian Desmond thrives with his love in these our days, when he and she are young.

The day is near; the darkest hour that presages the dawn has come, and still every one is dancing, and talking, and laughing, and some are alluring, by the aid of smiles and waving fans, the hearts of men.

Kit Beresford, in spite of her youth and her closely-cropped head, – which, after all is adorable in many ways, – has secured, all to her own bow, a young man from the Skillereen Barracks (a meagre town to the west of Rossmoyne). He is a very young, young man, and is by this time quite bon comarade with the sedate Kit, who is especially lenient with his shortcomings, and treats him as though he were nearly as old as herself.

Monica is dancing with Mr. Ryde. To do him justice, he dances very well; but whether Monica is dissatisfied with him, or whether she is tenderly regretful of the fact that at this moment she might just as well – or rather better – be dancing with another, I cannot say; but certainly her fair face is clothed with a pensive expression that heightens its beauty in a considerable degree.

"Look at that girl of Priscilla Blake's," says Madam O'Connor, suddenly, who is standing at the head of the room, surrounded, as usual, by young men. "Look at her. Was there ever such a picture? She is like a martyr at the stake. That intense expression suits her."

Brian Desmond flushes a little, and Kelly comes to the rescue.

"A martyr?" he says. "I don't think Ryde would be obliged to you if he heard you. I should name him as the martyr, if I were you. Just see how hopelessly silly – I mean, sentimental – he looks."

"Yet I think she fancies him," says Lord Rossmoyne, who is one of those men who are altogether good, respectable, and dense.

"Nonsense!" says Madam O'Connor, indignantly. "What on earth would she fancy that jackanapes for, when there are good men and true waiting for her round every corner?"

As she says this, she glances whole volumes of encouragement at Desmond, who, however, is so depressed by the fact that Monica has danced five times with Ryde, and is now dancing with him again, that he gives her no returning glance.

At this apparent coldness on his part, the blood of all the kings of Munster awakes in Madam O'Connor's breast.

"'Pon my conscience," she says, "I wouldn't give a good farthing for the lot of you, to let that girl go by! She came into Rossmoyne on the top of a hay-cart, I hear, – more luck to her, say I; for it shows the pluck in her, and the want of the sneaking fear of what he and she will say (more especially she) that spoils half our women. When I was her age I'd have done it myself. Rossmoyne, get out of that, till I get another look at her. I like her face. It does me good. It is so full of life et le beaute du diable," says Madame O'Connor, who speaks French like a native, and, be it understood, Irish too.

"We like to look at her, too," says Owen Kelly.

"To look, indeed! That would be thought poor comfort in my days when a pretty woman was in question, and men were men!" says Madam, with considerable spirit. "If I were a young fellow, now, 'tis in the twinkling of an eye I'd have her from under her aunt's nose and away in a coach and four."

"The sole thing that prevents our all eloping with Miss Beresford on the spot is – is – the difficulty of finding the coach and four and the blacksmith," says Mr. Kelly, with even a denser gloom upon his face than usual. Indeed, he now appears almost on the verge of tears.

"We never lost time speculating on ways and means in those days," says Madame O'Connor, throwing up her head. "Whoo! Times are changed indeed since my grandfather played old Harry with the countrymen and my grandmother's father by running away with her without a word to any one, after a big ball at my great grandmother's, and that, too, when she was guarded as if she was the princess royal herself and had every man in the South on his knees to her."

"But how did he manage it?" says Desmond, laughing.

"Faith, by making the old gentleman my great-grandfather as drunk as a fiddler, on drugged potheen," says Madam O'Connor, proudly. "The butler and he did it between them; but it was as near being murder as anything you like, because they put so much of the narcotic into the whiskey that the old man didn't come to himself for three days. That's the sort of thing for me," says Madam, with a little flourish of her shapely hand.

"So it would be for me, too," says Kelly, mournfully. "But there's no one good enough to risk my neck for, now you have refused to have anything to do with me."

"Get along with you, you wicked boy, making fun of an old woman!" says Madam, with her gay, musical laugh. "Though," with a touch of pride, "I won't deny but I led the lads a fine dance when I was the age of that pretty child yonder."

"I wonder you aren't ashamed when you think of all the mischief you did," says Desmond, who delights in her.

"Divil a bit!" says Madam O'Connor.

"Still, I really think Ryde affects her," says Rossmoyne, who, being a dull man, has clung to the first topic promulgated.

"That's nothing, so long as she doesn't affect him," says Kelly, somewhat sharply.

"But perhaps she does; and I daresay he has money. Those English fellows generally have a reversion somewhere."

"Not a penny," says Mr. Kelly. "And, whether or no, I don't believe she would look at him."

"Not she," says Madam O'Connor.

"I don't know that. And, even allowing what you say to be true, women are not always to be won by wealth" (with a faint sigh), "and he is a very good-looking fellow."

"Is he?" says Desmond, speaking with an effort. "If flesh counts, of course he is. 'Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.' To look at Ryde, one would fancy he slept well, not only by night but by day."

"I feel as if I was going to be sorry for Ryde presently," says Mr. Kelly.

"Well, he's not the man for Monica," says Madam O'Connor, with conviction. "See how sorrow grows upon her lovely face. For shame! go and release her, some one, from her durance vile. Take heart of grace, go in boldly, and win her, against all odds."

"But if she will not be won?" says Desmond, smiling, but yet with an anxious expression.

"'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a woman,'" quotes Madam, in a low voice, turning to Desmond with a broad smile of the liveliest encouragement; "and as for you, Desmond, why, if I were a girl, I'd be won by yours at once."

Desmond laughs.

"I'm sorry I'm beneath your notice now."

"Where's your uncle? Couldn't even my letter coax him here to-night?"

"Not even that. He has gone nowhere now for so many years that I think he is afraid to venture."

"Tut!" says Madam, impatiently; "because he jilted a woman once is no reason why the rest of us should jilt him."

It is an hour later, and all the guests have gone except indeed Kit, who has been sent upstairs tired and sleepy to share Monica's room, and Terence and Brian Desmond, who with his friend Kelly are struggling into their top-coats in the hall. The rain is descending in torrents, and they are regarding with rather rueful countenances the dog-cart awaiting them outside, in which they had driven over in the sunny morning that seems impossible, when Madam O'Connor sweeps down upon them.

"Take off those coats at once," she says. "What do you mean, Brian? I wouldn't have it on my conscience to send a rat out of my house on such a night as this, unless under cover." Her conscience is Madam's strong point. She excels in it. She ofttimes swears by it! Her promise to Miss Priscilla that Desmond shall not sleep beneath her roof during Monica's stay is forgotten or laid aside, and finally, with a smile of satisfaction, she sees the two young men carried off by Ronayne for a final smoke before turning in.

"I don't feel a bit sleepy myself," says Monica, who is looking as fresh and sweet as if only now just risen.

"Neither do I," says Olga. "Come to my room, then, and talk to me for a minute or two."

They must have been long minutes, because it is quite an hour later when a little slender figure, clad in a pretty white dressing-gown, emerges on tiptoe from Mrs. Bohun's room and steals hurriedly along the deserted corridor.

Somebody else is hurrying along this corridor, too. Seeing the childish figure in the white gown, he pauses; perhaps he thinks it is a ghost; but, if so, he is a doughty man, because he goes swiftly up to it with a glad smile upon his lips.

"My darling girl," he says, in a subdued voice, "I thought you were in the middle of your first happy dream by this."

Monica smiles, and leaves her hand in his.

"I am not such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me," she says. "But I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is abed, I suppose; and if Kit wakes and finds me not yet come, she will be frightened."

"Before you go, tell me you will meet me somewhere to-morrow. You," uncertainly, "are going home to-morrow, are you not?"

"Yes. But – but —how can I meet you? I have almost given my word to Aunt Priscilla to do nothing – clandestine – or that; and how shall I break it? You are always tempting me, and" – a soft glance stealing to him from beneath her lashes – "I should like to see you, of course, but so much duty I owe to her."

"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.

She turns to him with startled eyes.

"Who is that?" she asks.

"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the same."

"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest touch of offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.

"Sure!" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into something that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so unsure of anything, I wonder? There is so little certainty connected with you in my mind that half my days are consumed by doubts that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust in you. Upon your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not willingly condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if you now throw me over? But you won't I think."

"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and voice. Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold her to his heart in a close embrace. "How could you think that of me? Have you forgotten that I kissed you?"

Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed the other night beneath the stars.

"Forget it!" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing to be desired. "You are mine, then, now, – now and forever," he says, presently.

"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously. Her tone is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could only see me now!"

"Well, she can't, that's one comfort; not if she were the hundred-eyed Argus himself."

"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica, dolorously. "I am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow, when it is all over, – "

"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor. "What a thing to say!"

"I shall feel so guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as if I had been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think. How shall I ever be able to look her in the face again?"

"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world. You have only to fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose, and there you are!"

This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses quick reproach in Monica's eyes.

"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says, very justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at you if you were unhappy. You are not the least help to me. What am I to say to Aunt Priscilla?"

"'How d'ye do?' first; and then – in an airy tone, you know – 'I am going to be married, as soon as time permits, to Brian Desmond.' No, no," penitently, catching a firmer hold of her as she makes a valiant but ineffectual effort to escape the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean it. I am sorry, and I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with anything you say, if you will promise not to desert me."

"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour of need. I don't think," wistfully, "I am so very much to blame, am I? I didn't ask you to fall in love with me, and when you came here all this week to see Madam O'Connor I couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you, could I?"

"You could; but it would have brought you to the verge of suicide and murder. Because, as you turned, I should have turned too, on the chance of seeing your face, and so on, and on until vertigo set in, and death ensued, and we were both buried in one common grave. It sounds awful, doesn't it? Well, and where, then, will you come to meet me to-morrow?"

"To the river, I suppose," says Monica.

"Do you know," says Desmond, after a short pause, "I shall have to leave you soon? Not now; not until October, perhaps; but whenever I do go it will be for a month at least."

"A month?"

"Yes."

"A whole long month!"

"The longest month I shall have ever known," sadly.

"I certainly didn't think you would go and do a thing like that," says his beloved, with much severity.

"My darling, I can't help it; but we needn't talk about it just yet. Only it came into my head a moment ago, that it would be very sweet to get a letter from you while I was away: a letter," softly, "a letter from my own wife to her husband."

Monica glances at him in a half-perplexed fashion, and then, as though some thought has come to her for the first time, and brought merriment in its train, her lips part, and all her lovely face breaks into silent mirth.

"What is it?" asks he, a little – just a very little – disconcerted.

"Oh, nothing; nothing, really. Only it does seem so funny to think I have got a husband," she says, in a choked whisper, and then her mirth gets beyond her control, and, but that Brian presses her head down on his chest, and so stifles it, they might have had Miss Fitzgerald out upon them in ten seconds.

"Hush!" whispers the embryo husband, giving her a little shake. But he is laughing, too.

"I don't feel as if I honored you a bit," says Miss Beresford; "and as to the 'obey,' I certainly shan't do that."

"As if I should ask you!" says Desmond. "But what of the love, sweetheart?"

"Why, as it is yours, you ought to be the one to answer that question," retorts she, prettily, a warm flush dyeing her face.

"But why must you leave me?" she says, presently.

"The steward has written to me once or twice. Tenants nowadays are so troublesome. Of course I could let the whole thing slide, and the property go to the dogs; but no man has a right to do that. I am talking of my own place now, you understand, —yours, as it will be soon, I hope."

"And where is —our place?"

The hesitation is adorable, but still more adorable are the smile and blush that accompany it.

"In Westmeath," says Brian, when some necessary preliminaries have been gone through. "I hope you will like it. It is far prettier than Coole in every way."

"And I think Coole lovely, what I've seen of it," says Monica, sweetly.

Here the lamp that has hitherto been lighting the corridor, thinking, doubtless (and very reasonably, too), that it has done its duty long enough, flickers, and goes out. But no darkness follows its defection. Through the far window a pale burst of light rushes, illumining in a cold and ghostly manner the spot on which they stand. "The meek-eyed morn, mother of dews," has come, and night has slipped away abashed, with covered front.

Together they move to the window and look out upon the awakening world; and, even as they gaze enraptured at its fairness, the sun shoots up from yonder hill, and a great blaze of glory is abroad.

 
"Over the spangled grass
Swept the swift footsteps of the lovely light,
Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems."
 

"Oh, we have delayed too long," says Monica, with a touch of awe engendered by the marvellous and mystic beauty of the hour. "Good-night, good-night!"

"Nay, rather a fair good-morrow, my sweet love," says Desmond, straining her to his heart.

CHAPTER XXV

How The Desmond's mind is harrassed by a gentle maiden and two ungentle roughs; and how the Land League shows him a delicate attention.

"By the by," says old Mr. Desmond, looking at his nephew across the remains of the dessert, "You've been a good deal at Aghyohillbeg of late: why?"

It is next evening, and, Monica being at Moyne and inaccessible, Brian is at Coole. Mr. Kelly is walking up and down on the gravelled walk outside, smoking a cigar.

"Because Miss Beresford was there," says Brian, breaking a grape languidly from the bunch he holds in his hand.

"What!" says Mr. Desmond, facing him.

"Because Miss Beresford was there."

"What am I to understand by that?"

"That she was there, I suppose," says Brian, laughing, "and that I am head over ears in love with her."

"How dare you say such a thing as that to me?" says the squire, pushing back his chair and growing a lively purple. "Are you going to tell me next you mean to marry her?"

"I certainly do," says Brian; "and," with a glance of good-humored defiance at the squire, "I'm the happiest man in the world to-day because she last night told me she'd have me."

"You shan't do it!" says the squire, now almost apoplectic. "You shan't do it! – do you hear? I'm standing in your poor father's place, sir, and I forbid you to marry one of that blood. What! marry the daughter – of – of – " something in his throat masters him here, – "the niece of Priscilla Blake, a woman with a tongue! Never!"

"My dear George, you wouldn't surely have me marry a woman without one?"

"I think all women would be better without them; and as for Priscilla Blake's, I tell you, sir, Xantippe was an angel to her. I insist on your giving up this idea at once."

"I certainly shan't give up Miss Beresford, if that is what you mean?"

"Then I'll disinherit you!" roars the squire. "I will, I swear it! I'll marry myself. I'll do something desperate!"

"No, you won't," says Brian, laughing again; and going over to the old man, he lays his hands upon his shoulders and pushes him gently back into his chair. "When you see her you will adore her, and she sent her love to you this morning, and this, too," laying a photograph of Monica before the Squire, who glances at it askance, as though fearful it may be some serpent waiting to sting him for the second time; but, as he looks, his face clears.

"She is not like her mother," he says, in a low tone.

"I never met such a remorseful old beggar," thinks Desmond, with wonder; but just at this moment a servant enters with a message to the squire; so the photograph is hastily withdrawn, and the conversation – or rather discussion – comes to an end.

"Two of the tenants are asking to see you, sir," says the butler, confidentially.

"What two?"

"Donovan, from the East, and Moloney, from the Bog Road, sir."

"Very well; show Moloney into the library, and tell Donovan to wait downstairs until I send for him."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Moloney, come to pay your rent?" says the squire, cheerfully, entering the library and gazing keenly at the man who is awaiting him there. He is a fellow of ordinary build, with a cringing, servile expression and shifting eyes. He smiles apologetically, and shuffles uneasily from one foot to the other as he feels the squire's eye upon him.

"No, sir; I can't bring it, sir. I'd be in dhread o' my life wid the boys to do it."

"I don't know who the gentlemen in question you designate as 'the boys' may be," says the squire, calmly. "I can only tell you that I expect my rent from you, and intend to get it."

"That's what I come to spake about, yer honor. But the Land League is a powerful body, an' secret too; look at the murdher o' Mr. Herbert and that English Lord in Faynix Park, and the rewards an' all, an' what's come of it?"

"A good deal of hanging will come of it, I trust," says The Desmond, hopefully. "In the mean time, I am not to be detered from doing my duty by idle threats. I thought you, Moloney, were too respectable a man to mix yourself up with this movement."

"I'm only a poor man, sir, but my life is as good to me as another's; an' if I pay they'll murdher me, an' what'll become o' me then? An' besides, I haven't it, sir; 'tis thrue for me. How can I be up to time, wid the crop so bad this year."

"It is as good a year as I have ever known for crops," says Desmond. "I will have no excuses of that sort: either you pay me or turn out; I am quite determined on this point."

"Ye wouldn't give me an abatement, yer honor?"

"No, not a penny. Not to men such as you, who come here to demand it as a right and are very well to do. There are others whose cases I shall consider; but that is my own affair, and I will not be dictated to. On Monday you will bring me your rent, or give up the land."

"I think ye're a bit unwise to press matthers just now," says the man, slowly, and with a sinister glance from under his knitted brows. "I don't want to say anything uncivil to ye, sir, but – I'd take care if I were you. The counthry is mad hot, an', now they think they've got Gladstone wid 'em, they wouldn't stick at a trifle."

"The trifle being my assassination," says old Desmond, with a laugh. He draws himself up, and, in spite of his ugly face, looks almost princely. "Tut, man! don't think, after all these years among you, I am to be intimidated: you should know me better."

The man cowers before the haughty glance the old squire casts upon him, and retreats behind his cringing manner once again.

"I thought ye might take into considheration the fact that I'm of yer own religion," he says cunningly.

"That you are a Protestant does not weigh with me one inch. One tenant is as worthy of consideration as another; and, to tell the truth, I find your Roman Catholic brethren far easier to deal with, I will have no whining about differences of that sort. All I require is what is justly due to me; and that I shall expect on Monday. You understand?"

"Ye're a hard man," says Moloney, with an evil glance.

"I expected you to say nothing else. All the kindness of years is forgotten because of one denial. How often have I let you off your rent entirely during these twenty years we have been landlord and tenant together! There, go! I have other business to attend to. But on Monday, remember."

"Ye won't see me that day or any other," says the fellow, insolently, sticking his hat on his head with a defiant gesture.

"Very good. That is your own lookout. You know the consequences of your non-arrival. Denis," to the footman, "show this man out, and send Donovan here."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Donovan, what is it?" says Desmond, a few minutes later, as the library door again opens to admit the other malcontent. He is a stout, thick-set man, with fierce eyes and a lowering brow, and altogether a very "villanous countenance." He has mercifully escaped, however, the hypocritical meanness of the face that has just gone. There is a boldness, a reckless, determined daring about this man, that stamps him as a leading spirit among men of evil minds.

"I've come here to spake to ye to-night, Misther Desmond, as man to man," he says, with a somewhat swaggering air.

"With all my heart," says The Desmond; "but be as fair to me as I have ever been to you and yours, and we shall come to amicable terms soon enough."

"As to fairness," says the man, "I don't see how any landlord in Ireland can spake of it without a blush."

Strange to say, the aggressive insolence of this man fails to rouse in Mr. Desmond's breast the anger that the servile humility of the last comer had brought into active being.

"Look here, Donovan," he says, "I've been a good landlord to you; and I expect you, therefore, to be a good tenant to me. You hint that I, along with the rest, have dealt unfairly with my people; but can you prove it? You can lay to my charge no tales of harshness. In famine times, and when potatoes failed, in times of misfortune and sickness, I have always stood your friend, and the friend of every man, woman, and child on my estate; yet now what harvest do I reap, save grossest ingratitude? yet what more can I hope for in this most unhappy time, when blood is unrighteously poured upon the land, and the laws of God and my queen are set at naught?"

There is a touch of passionate old-world grandeur in the squire's face and manner that works a sense of admiration in Donovan's breast. But it quickly gives way to the carefully-cultivated sense of injury that has been growing within him for months.

"Ye can talk, there's no doubt," he mutters; "but words go for little; and the fact is, I've got no rent to pay ye."

His tone conveys the idea that he has the rent, but deliberately refuses to pay it.

"You will bring it on Monday, or I shall evict you," says the Squire quietly. "You hear?"

"I hear," says the man, with an evil frown. "But ye can't have it all yer own way now, Misther Desmond. There's others have a voice in the matther."

"I don't care for innuendoes of that sort, or for any insolence whatever; I only mean you to fully know that I must live as well as you, and that therefore I must have my rents."

"I know well enough what ye mane," says the man, with increasing insolence. "But I'd have you know this, that maybe before long ye'll whistle another tune. There's them I could mention, as has their eye upon ye, an' will keep it there till justice is done."

"Meaning, until I give up Coole itself to the mob," says the squire, with a sneer.

"Ay, even that, it may be," says the man, with unswerving defiance.

"You dare to threaten me?" says The Desmond, throwing up his head haughtily, and drawing some steps nearer to his tenant.

"I only say what is likely to prove truth before long," returns the man, sturdily, and giving in an inch. "That we'll have no more tyranny, but will have a blow for our rights, if we swing for it."

"You can shoot me when and where you like," says Desmond, with a shrug. "But I am afraid it will do you no good."

"It will be a lesson to the others," says the man between his teeth.

"To you others, – yes; because it will make my heir somewhat harder on you than I am. The Desmonds never forgive. However, that is more your lookout than mine. A last word, though: if you were not the consummate idiots this last revolt has proved you, you would see how you are being led astray by a few demagogues (a butcher's boy, perchance, or an attorney's clerk pushed by you from absolute obscurity into a Parliament ashamed to acknowledge them), who will save their skins at the expense of yours at the last, and who meanwhile thrive royally upon the moneys you subscribe!"

"That's a damned lie for ye," says Donovan losing his temper altogether.

At this outbreak The Desmond rises slowly, and, ringing the bell, calmly pares his nails until a servant comes in answer to his summons.

"Ask Mr. Brian to come here for a moment," he says, calmly, not lifting his eyes from the fourth finger of his left hand, upon the nail of which he is just now employed.

Brian lounging in, in a few moments, his uncle pockets his penknife, and, waving his hand lightly in Donovan's direction, says, gravely, —

"This man, Donovan, will be one of your tenants, some time, Brian," – plainly, he has forgotten all about his determination to marry again, and so dispossess his nephew of Coole and other things, or else one glance at Monica's portrait (in which she had appeared so unlike her mother) has done wonders: "it is therefore as well you should learn his sentiments towards his landlord, especially as he is apparently the mouthpiece of all the others. Oblige me, Donovan, by repeating to Mr. Brian all you have just said to me."

But the man is far too clever a lawyer to commit himself before a third party.

"I have nothing to say," he answers, sullenly, "but this, that times are hard an' money scarce, an' – "

"We will pass over all that. It is an old story now; and, as you decline to speak, I will just tell you again, I intend to have my rent on Monday, and if I don't I shall evict you."

"Ay! as you evicted Ned Barry last month, throwing him on the open road, with his wife beside him, an' a baby not a month old."

"Nonsense! the child was six months old, and Barry was better able to pay than any tenant I have, and more willing, too, until this precious Land League tampered with him. He has proved he had the money since, by paying a sum to Sullivan yonder for board and lodging that would have kept him in his own house for twice the length of time he has been there. I know all about it: I have made it my business to find it out."

"Ye're mighty well informed entirely," says Donovan with a wicked sneer.

"If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head, you had better leave this room," says Brian, flushing darkly and making a step towards him.

"Who are you, to order me about?" says the man, with a fierce glance. "Ye're not my master yet, I can tell ye, an' maybe ye never will be."

"Leave the room," says Brian, white with rage, pointing imperiously to the door.

"Curse ye!" says the man; yet, warned by the expression on Brian's face, he moves in a rebellious manner to the door, and so disappears.

"They are the most unpleasant peasantry in the world," says the squire, some hours later, – the words coming like a dreary sigh through the clouds of tobacco-smoke that curl upwards from his favorite meershaum.

He and Brian and Owen Kelly are all sitting in the library, the scene of the late encounter, and have been meditating silently upon many matters, in which perhaps Love has the largest share, considering his votaries are two to one, when the squire most unexpectedly gives way to the speech aforesaid.

"The women are very handsome," says Mr. Kelly.

"Handsome is as handsome does," says the squire with a grunt.

"Don't the Protestant tenants pay?" asks Owen, presently, who is in a blissful state of ignorance about the tenant-right affair generally.

"They're just the worst of the lot," says old Desmond, testily: "they come whimpering here, saying they would gladly pay, but that they are afraid of the others, and won't I let them off? and so forth."