no, Bryan; I like
everything that I've known long. When my heart gets accustomed to
anything or to anybody"--here he glanced affectionately at his wife--"I
can't bear to part wid them, or to think of partin' wid them."

The horses were now ready, and in a brief space he and his son were
decently mounted, the latter smartly but not inappropriately dressed;
and M'Mahon himself, with his right spur, in a sober but comfortable
suit, over which was a huge Jock, his inseparable companion in every
fair, market, and other public place, during the whole year. Indeed, it
would not be easy to find two better representatives of that respectable
and independent class of Irish yeomanry of which our unfortunate country
stands so much in need, as was this man of high integrity and his
excellent son.

On arriving at Gerald Cavanagh's, which was on their way to the auction,
it appeared that in order to have his company it was necessary they
should wait for a little, as he was not yet ready. That worthy man they
found in the act of shaving himself, seated very upright upon a chair
in the kitchen, his eyes fixed with great steadiness upon the opposite
wall, whilst lying between his legs upon the ground was a wooden dish
half filled with water, and on a chair beside him a small looking-glass,
with its backup, which, after feeling his face from time to time in an
experimental manner, he occasionally peeped into, and again laid down to
resume the operation.

In the mean time, Mrs. Cavanagh set forward a chair for Tom M'Mahon, and
desired her daughter Hannah to place one for Bryan, which she did. The
two girls were spinning, and it might have been observed that Kathleen
appeared to apply herself to that becoming and feminine employment with
double industry after the appearance of the M'Mahons. Kate Hogan was
sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a pipe, and as she took it out
of her mouth to whiff away the smoke from time to time, she turned her
black piercing eyes alternately from Bryan M'Mahon to Kathleen with a
peculiar keenness of scrutiny.

"An' how are you all up at Carriglass?" asked Mrs. Cavanagh.

"Indeed we can't complain, thank God, as the times goes," replied
M'Mahon.

"An' the ould grandfather?--musha, but I was glad to see him look so
well on Sunday last!"

"Troth he's as stout as e'er a one of us."

"The Lord continue it to him! I suppose you hard o' this robbery that
was done at honest Jemmy Burke's?"

"I did, ind