the joy that irradiated my
countenance.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

IS A CHAPTER OF PLOTS--CATHOLIC CASUISTRY IN A NEW CASSOCK--PLOTTING
PROMOTES PROMOTION--A PEASANT'S LOVE, AND A PEER'S PEEVISHNESS--
PROSPECTS OF PROSPERITY.

As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I sent for a Plymouth paper, and cut
out the paragraph which had been of such importance to me in my
emergency, and the next morning returned home to receive the
congratulations of my family. I found a letter from O'Brien, which had
arrived the day before. It was as follows:--

"MY DEAR PETER,--Some people, they say, are lucky to `have a father
born before them,' because they are helped on in the world--upon which
principle, mine was born _after_ me, that's certain; however, that
can't be helped. I found all my family well and hearty: but they all
shook a cloth in the wind with respect to toggery. As for Father
McGrath's cassock, he didn't complain of it without reason. It was
the ghost of a garment; but, however, with the blessing of God, my
last quarterly bill, and the help of a tailor, we have had a regular
refit, and the ancient family of the O'Briens of Ballyhinch are now
rigged from stem to stern. My two sisters are both to be spliced to
young squireens in the neighbourhood; it appears that they only waited
for a dacent town gown to go to the church in. They will be turned
off next Friday, and I only wish, Peter, you were here to dance at the
weddings. Never mind, I'll dance for you and for myself too. In the
meantime, I'll just tell you what Father McGrath and I have been
doing, all about and consarning that thief of an uncle of yours.

"It's very little or nothing at all that Father McGrath did before I
came back, seeing as how Father O'Toole had a new cassock, and Father
McGrath's was so shabby that he couldn't face him under such a
disadvantage: but still Father McGrath spied about him, and had
several hints from here and from there, all of which, when I came to
add them up, amounted to nothing at all.

"But since I came home, we have been busy. Father McGrath went down
to Ballycleuch, as bold as a lion, in his new clothing, swearing that
he'd lead Father O'Toole by the nose for slamming the door in his
face, and so he would have done, if he could have found him; but as he
wasn't to be found, Father McGrath came back again just as wise, and
quite as brave, as he went out.

"So