ed?
Move on, now and overtake your friend--by the way he's a fine horseman,
they say?"

"Very few better," said Hycy; "but some there are--and one I know--ha!
ha! ha! Good-bye, Bryan, and don't be made a fool of for nothing."

Bryan nodded and laughed, and Hycy dashed on to overtake his friend
Clinton.

M'Mahon's way home lay by Gerald Cavanagh's house, near which as he
approached he saw Nanny Peety in close conversation with Kate Hogan. The
circumstance, knowing their relationship as he did, made no impression
whatsoever upon him, nor would he have bestowed a thought upon it, had
he been left to his own will in the matter. The women separated ere he
had come within three hundred yards of them; Kate, who had evidently
been convoying her niece a part of the way, having returned in the
direction of Cavanagh's, leaving Nanny to pursue her journey home, by
which she necessarily met M'Mahon.

"Well, Nanny," said the latter, "how are you?"

"Faix, very well, I thank you, Bryan; how are all the family in
Carriglass?"

"Barring my mother, they're all well, Nanny. I was glad to hear you
got so good a place, an' I'm still betther plaised to see you look so
well--for it's a proof that you feel comfortable in it."

"Why I can't complain," she replied; "but you know there's no one widout
their throubles."

"Troubles, Nanny," said Bryan, with surprise; "why surely, Nanny,
barrin' it's love, I don't see what trouble you can have."

"Well, and may be it is," said the girl, smiling.

"Oh, in that case," replied Bryan, "I grant you're to be pitied; poor
thing, you look so ill and pale upon it, too. An' what is it like,
Nanny--this same love that's on you?"

"Faix," she replied, archly, "it's well for you that Miss Kathleen's not
to the fore or you daren't ax any one sich a question as that."

"Well done, Nanny," he returned; "do you think she knows what it's
like?"

"It's not me," she replied again, "you ought to be axin' sich a question
from; if you don't know it I dunna who ought."

"Begad, you're sharp an' ready, Nanny," replied Bryan, laughing; "well,
and how are you all in honest Jemmy Burke's?"

"Some of us good, some of us bad, and some of us indifferent, but, thank
goodness, all in the best o' health."

"Good, bad, and indifferent," replied Bryan, pausing a little. "Well,
now, Nanny, if one was to ask you who is the good in your family, what
would you say?"

"Of coorse myself," she returned; "an' stay--let