e had cause to be ashamed. He was
ashamed, and tried to hide his face, for he was not accustomed to be
seen with the tears running down his cheeks; but still he had within
him a strong sensation of gratified pride, as he reflected that he was
the object of the warmest affection to so sweet a creature as Anty
Lynch.

"Well, Martin--what was it she wanted?" said his mother, as she met him
at the bottom of the stairs.

"I couldn't tell you now, mother," said he; "but av there was iver an
angel on 'arth, it's Anty Lynch." And saying so, he pushed open the
door and escaped into the street.

"I wondher what she's been about now?" said the widow, speculating to
herself--"well, av she does lave it away from Barry, who can say but
what she has a right to do as she likes with her own?--and who's done
the most for her, I'd like to know?"--and pleasant prospects of her
son's enjoying an independence flitted before her mind's eye. "But
thin," she continued, talking to herself, "I wouldn't have it said in
Dunmore that a Kelly demaned hisself to rob a Lynch, not for twice
all Sim Lynch ever had. Well--we'll see; but no good 'll ever come of
meddling with them people. Jane, Jane," she called out, at the top of
her voice, "are you niver coming down, and letting me out of this?--bad
manners to you."

Jane answered, in the same voice, from the parlour upstairs, "Shure,
mother, ain't I getting Anty her tay?"

"Drat Anty and her tay!--Well, shure, I'm railly bothered now wid them
Lynches!--Well, glory be to God, there's an end to everything--not that
I'm wishing her anywhere but where she is; she's welcome, for Mary
Kelly."

XXVI. LOVE'S AMBASSADOR

Two days after the hunt in which poor Goneaway was killed by Barry's
horse, Ballindine received the following letter from his friend Dot
Blake.

Limmer's Hotel, 27th March, 1844.

Dear Frank,

I and Brien, and Bottom, crossed over last Friday night, and, thanks
to the God of storms, were allowed to get quietly through it. The
young chieftain didn't like being boxed on the quay a bit too well;
the rattling of the chains upset him, and the fellows there are
so infernally noisy and awkward, that I wonder he was ever got on
board. It's difficult to make an Irishman handy, but it's the very
devil to make him quiet. There were four at his head, and three at
his tail, two at the wheel, turning, and one up aloft, hallooing
like a demon in the ai