t extent, but she felt it only to influence her better and
nobler principles. After casting her eyes around to gather in, as it
were, that honest approbation which is so natural, and exchanging some
rapid glances with the youth we have alluded to, she went over to her
defeated competitor, and taking her hand said, "Don't cry, Betty, you
have no right to be ashamed; sure, as you say, it's the first time you
wor ever beaten; we couldn't all win; an' indeed if I feel proud
now, everyone knows an' says I have a right to be so; for where was
there--ay, or where is there--such a spinner as you are?

"Shake hands now an' there's a kiss for you. If I won this kemp, it was
won more by chance than by anything else."

These generous expressions were not lost on Betty; on the contrary, they
soothed her so much that she gave her hand cordially to her young and
interesting conqueress, after which they all repaired to a supper of new
milk and flummery, than which there is nothing more delicious within the
wide range of luxury. This agreeable meal being over, they repaired to
the large barn where Mickey M'Grory the fiddler, was installed in his
own peculiar orchestra, consisting of an arm-chair of old Irish oak,
brought out from Gerald Cavanagh's parlor.

It would indeed be difficult to find together such a group of happy
faces. Gerald Cavanagh and his wife, Tom M'Mahon and his better
half, and several of the neighbors, of every age and creed, were all
assembled; and, in this instance, neither gray hairs nor length of years
were looked upon as privileged from a participation in the festivities
of the evening. Among the rest, gaunt and grim, were the three Hogans,
looking through the light-hearted assemblage with the dark and sinister
visages of thorough ruffians, who were altogether incapable of joining
in the cheerful and inoffensive amusements that went forward around
them. Kate Hogan sat in an obscure corner behind the fiddler, where
she was scarcely visible, but from which she enjoyed a full view of
everything that occurred in the house.

A shebeen-man, named Parra Bradagh, father to Barney, whom the reader
has already met in the still-house, brought a cask of poteen to the
stable, where he disposed of it _sub silentio_, by which we mean without
the knowledge of Gerald Cavanagh, who would not have suffered any such
person about his place, had the circumstance been made known to him.
Among the rest, in the course of the evening,