her face, and turned up at the back of the head with the grace
of an antique cameo. She seemed not more than nineteen years of age, and
in the gaze of astonishment and pleasure she threw around her, it might
be seen how new such scenes and sights were to her.

"That's Phil Joyce's sister, and a crooked disciple of a brother she
has," said the other; "sorra bit if he'd ever let her come to the
'pattern' afore to-day; and she's the raal ornament of the place now
she's in it."

"Just mind Phil, will ye! watch him now; see the frown he's giving the
boys as they go by, for looking at his sister. I wouldn't coort a girl
that I couldn't look in the face and see what was in it, av she owned
Ballinahinch Castle," said the former.

"There now; what is he at now?" whispered the other; "he's left her in
the tent there: and look at him, the way he's talking to ould Bill; he's
telling him something about a fight; never mind me agin, but there'll be
'wigs on the green' this night."

"I don't know where the Lynchs and the Connors is to-day," said the
other, casting a suspicious look around him, as if anxious to calculate
the forces available in the event of a row. "They gave the Joyces their
own in Ballinrobe last fair. I hope they're not afeard to come down
here."

"Sorra bit, ma bouchai," said a voice from behind his shoulder; and at
the same moment the speaker clapped his hands over the other's eyes:
"Who am I, now?"

"Arrah! Owen Connor; I know ye well," said the other; "and His yourself
ought not to be here to-day. The ould father of ye has nobody but
yourself to look after him."

"I'd like to see ye call him ould to his face," said Owen, laughing:
"there he is now, in Poll Dawley's tent, dancing."

"Dancing!" cried the other two in a breath.

"Aye, faix, dancing 'The little bould fox;' and may I never die in sin,
if he hasn't a step that looks for all the world as if he made a hook
and eye of his legs."

The young man who spoke these words was in mould and gesture the very
ideal of an Irish peasant of the west; somewhat above the middle size,
rather slightly made, but with the light and neatly turned proportion
that betokens activity, more than great strength, endurance, rather than
the power of any single effort. His face well became the character of
his figure; it was a handsome and an open one, where the expressions
changed and crossed each other with lightning speed, now, beaming with
good nature, now, flashing