ellence of money, and, having
fully imbued him with this, had cut him off from the use of it.

He was glad when he found that dinner was at hand, and that he could
not now see his sister until after he had fortified himself with drink.
Anty rarely, if ever, dined with him; so he sat down, and swallowed his
solitary meal. He did not eat much, but he gulped down three or four
glasses of wine; and, immediately on having done so, he desired the
servant, with a curse, to bring him hot water and sugar, and not to
keep him waiting all night for a tumbler of punch, as he did usually.
Before the man had got into the kitchen, he rang the bell again;
and when the servant returned breathless, with the steaming jug, he
threatened to turn him out of the house at once, if he was not quicker
in obeying the orders given him. He then made a tumbler of punch,
filling the glass half full of spirits, and drinking it so hot as to
scald his throat; and when that was done he again rang the bell, and
desired the servant to tell Miss Anty that he wanted to speak to her.
When the door was shut, he mixed more drink, to support his courage
during the interview, and made up his mind that nothing should daunt
him from preventing the marriage, in one way or another. When Anty
opened the door, he was again standing with his back to the fire, his
hands in his pockets, the flaps of his coat hanging over his arms, his
shoulders against the mantel-piece, and his foot on the chair on which
he had been sitting. His face was red, and his eyes were somewhat
blood-shot; he had always a surly look, though, from his black hair,
and large bushy whiskers, many people would have called him good
looking; but now there was a scowl in his restless eyes, which
frightened Anty when she saw it; and the thick drops of perspiration
on his forehead did not add benignity to his face.

"Were you wanting me, Barry?" said Anty, who was the first to speak.

"What do you stand there for, with the door open?" replied her brother,
"d' you think I want the servants to hear what I've got to say?"

"'Deed I don't know," said Anty, shutting the door; "but they'll hear
just as well now av' they wish, for they'll come to the kay-hole."

"Will they, by G----!" said Barry, and he rushed to the door, which
he banged open; finding no victim outside on whom to exercise his
wrath--"let me catch 'em!" and he returned to his position by the fire.

Anty had sat down on a sofa that stood by th