been neither
mangled nor ironed, so multitudinous had been the efforts to make
it fit her ungainly person. She had a large white cap on her head,
extending widely over her ears; and her hair, parted on her left
brow, was smeared flat over her forehead with oil: her arms were
bare, and quite red, and her hands were thrust into huge white cotton
gloves, which seemed to make them so ashamed of themselves as utterly
to unfit them for their ordinary uses. Everyone that entered, said,
"Well, Mary," or, "Well, alanna, how's yourself?" or some greeting of
the kind, to which she answered only with a grin. She and her future
husband seemed totally unacquainted with each other, for since he
came in he hadn't spoken to her. In fact, poor Mary, as she expressed
herself to Feemy, "Couldn't get her sperrits up at all, and felt
quite cowed like."

Biddy, from Ballycloran, was her bridesmaid, and she, though she did
not emulate the bride in her white dress, had also thrust her head
into a huge cap, which, if it did not much add to her beauty, at any
rate made her sufficiently remarkable to show that she was one of the
principal characters of the evening.

Denis had procured himself a second-hand light brown coat, with metal
buttons; this was the only attempt at wedding finery which he had
made; but even this seemed to make him somewhat beside himself,
and gave him a strong resemblance to that well-known martyr to
unaccustomed grandeur--a hog in armour. Pat seemed to scorn the party
altogether, though he was to officiate in giving away the bride; he
was talking apart to Reynolds and one or two others, and seeing to
the proper arrangement and distribution of the good things which were
to follow the wedding. Thady was not in the place; he had not yet
arrived.

"Ah! Feemy," began Father John, as she walked in, followed by Ussher,
"how are you? and this is kind of you, Captain."

"Long life to you, Miss Feemy! and you, too, Captain dear," said
Mary, at last excited to speak by the greatness of the occasion.

"Your honers are welcome, Miss; your honers are welcome, Captain
Ussher," said Denis, forgetting that, for the present, he was only a
guest himself; and then Brady, and then Shamuth na Pibu'a, the blind
piper from County Mayo, "who had made the music out of his own head,
all about O'Connell"--and then Biddy, and Mrs. Mehan, and all the
boys and girls one after another, got up, and ducked their heads
down in token of kindly welcom