the widow. Here, however, he was out in his reckoning,
for she declared she did not believe it,--that it wasn't, and couldn't
be true; and it was only after his departure that she succeeded in
extracting the truth from her daughters.

The news, however, quickly reached the kitchen and its lazy crowd; and
the inn door and its constant loungers; and was readily and gladly
credited in both places.

Crone after crone, and cripple after cripple, hurried into the shop, to
congratulate the angry widow on "masther Martin's luck; and warn't he
worthy of it, the handsome jewel--and wouldn't he look the gintleman,
every inch of him?" and Sally expatiated greatly on it in the kitchen,
and drank both their healths in an extra pot of tea, and Kate grinned
her delight, and Jack the ostler, who took care of Martin's horse,
boasted loudly of it in the street, declaring that "it was a good thing
enough for Anty Lynch, with all her money, to get a husband at all out
of the Kellys, for the divil a know any one knowed in the counthry
where the Lynchs come from; but every one knowed who the Kellys
wor--and Martin wasn't that far from the lord himself."

There was great commotion, during the whole day, at the inn. Some said
Martin had gone to town to buy furniture; others, that he had done so
to prove the will. One suggested that he'd surely have to fight Barry,
and another prayed that "if he did, he might kill the blackguard, and
have all the fortin to himself, out and out, God bless him!"

V. A LOVING BROTHER

The great news was not long before it reached the ears of one not
disposed to receive the information with much satisfaction, and this
was Barry Lynch, the proposed bride's amiable brother. The medium
through which he first heard it was not one likely to add to his good
humour. Jacky, the fool, had for many years been attached to the
Kelly's Court family; that is to say, he had attached himself to it, by
getting his food in the kitchen, and calling himself the lord's fool.
But, latterly, he had quarrelled with Kelly's Court, and had insisted
on being Sim Lynch's fool, much to the chagrin of that old man; and,
since his death, he had nearly maddened Barry by following him through
the street, and being continually found at the house-door when he went
out. Jack's attendance was certainly dictated by affection rather than
any mercenary views, for he never got a scrap out of the Dunmore House
kitchen, or a halfpenny from his