id, walked off to the priest's cottage, to partake of
the relics of a goose, and seek counsel of his friend; but it was not
Father John's dinner hour yet, and he found no one in but Judy McCan.
He walked into the priest's little parlour, and sat down to wait for
him, again meditating on all the evils which hung over his devoted
family, and sitting thus he at length fell fast asleep.

Here he slept for above an hour, when he was awakened by the door
opening behind him, and in jumping up to meet Father John, as he
thought, he encountered the lank and yellow features, much worn
dress, and dirty, moist hand of Father Cullen.

"Were you sleeping, then, Mr. Thady, before Father McGrath's fire?
'deed, then, I dare say you've been walking a great sight, for you
look jaded. I'm not that fresh myself, for I've been away to Loch
Sheen, to widow Byrne's. Bad luck to the cratures, there's nothing
but sick calls now, and my heart's broken with them, so it is."

Thady's only answer to this was, "How are you, Father Cullen?" He
wished him back at Maynooth.

"Well, I hope Father McGrath isn't far off thin," and he looked at a
watch nearly as big as a church clock, "for I'm very hungry, and, my!
it's only twenty minutes to six--"

This gave Thady the very unwelcome intelligence that Father Cullen
meant to dine at the cottage.

"And now the pony's lamed undher me, I had to walk all the way to
Loch Sheen, in the dirt and gutther."

Thady's mind was full of one object, and he could not interest
himself about the curate's misfortunes in the lameness of his pony
and the dirt of his walk.

"And bad manners to them Commissioners and people they sent over
bothering and altering the people! Couldn't we have our own parishes
as we like, and fix them ourselves, but they must be sending English
people to give us English parishes, altering the meerings just to
be doing something? You know, Thady, the far end of Loch Sheen up
there?"

"Yes, Father Cullen, I know where Loch Sheen is."

"Well, that used to be Cashcarrigan parish; and Father Comyns--that's
the parish priest in Cash--don't live not two miles all out from
there; and the widow Byrne's is six miles from where I live out
yonder, if it's a step, and yet they must go and put Loch Sheen into
this parish."

Father Cullen's misfortunes still did not come home to Macdermot; he
sat looking at the fire.

"There's that poor ould woman, too, up there, left to starve by
herself, the cra