et me have it on the security of the
house, you know, av' I did take up with the offer. So, any way, your
lordship needn't be balked about the cash."

"But is Miss Lynch so very ill, Martin?"

"'Deed, and she is, Mr Frank; very bad intirely. Doctor Colligan was
with her three times yestherday."

"And does Barry take any notice of her now she's ill?"

"Why, not yet he didn't; but then, we kept it from him as much as we
could, till it got dangerous like. Mother manes to send Colligan to him
to-day, av' he thinks she's not betther."

"If she were to die, Martin, there'd be an end of it all, wouldn't
there?"

"Oh, in course there would, my lord"--and then he added, with a sigh,
"I'd be sorry she'd die, for, somehow, I'm very fond of her, quare as
it'll seem to you. I'd be very sorry she should die."

"Of course you would, Martin; and it doesn't seem queer at all."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking about the money, then, my lord; I was only
thinking of Anty herself: you don't know what a good young woman she
is--it's anything but herself she's thinking of always."

"Did she make any will?"

"Deed she didn't, my lord: nor won't, it's my mind."

"Ah! but she should, after all that you and your mother've gone
through. It'd be a thousand pities that wretch Barry got all the
property again."

"He's wilcome to it for the Kellys, av' Anty dies. But av' she lives he
shall niver rob a penny from her. Oh, my lord! we wouldn't put sich a
thing as a will into her head, and she so bad, for all the money the
ould man their father iver had. But, hark! my lord--that's Gaylass, I
know the note well, and she's as true as gould: there's the fox there,
just inside the gorse, as the Parson said"--and away they both trotted,
to the bottom of the plantation, from whence the cheering sound of the
dog's voices came, sharp, sweet, and mellow.

Yes; the Parson was as right as if he had been let into the fox's
confidence overnight, and had betrayed it in the morning. Gaylass was
hardly in the gorse before she discovered the doomed brute's vicinity,
and told of it to the whole canine confraternity. Away from his
hiding-place he went, towards the open country, but immediately
returned into the covert, for he saw a lot of boys before him, who had
assembled with the object of looking at the hunt, but with the very
probable effect of spoiling it; for, as much as a fox hates a dog, he
fears the human race more, and will run from an urchin with a stick