y choice of the Church, or--to starve.'--But I have my
sermon to prepare for to-morrow, and I can sit here no longer. Tell
Ellen to send me in some tea."

I did not think my father was in a very fit state of mind to write a
sermon, but I held my tongue. My sister joined me, and we saw no more
of him till breakfast the next day. Before we met, I received a letter
from O'Brien.

"MY DEAR PETER,--I ran down to Plymouth, hoisted my pennant, drew my
jollies from the dock-yard, and set my first lieutenant to work
getting in the ballast and water-tanks. I then set off for Ireland,
and was very well received as Captain O'Brien by my family, who were
all flourishing. Now that my two sisters are so well married off, my
father and mother are very comfortable, but very lonely; for I believe
I told you long before that it had pleased Heaven to take all the rest
of my brothers and sisters, except the two now married, and one who
bore up for a nunnery, dedicating her service to God, after she was
scarred with the small-pox, and no man would look at her. Ever since
the family have been grown up, my father and mother have been
lamenting and sorrowing that none of them would go off; and now that
they're all gone off one way or another, they cry all day because they
are left all alone, with no one to keep company with them, except
Father McGrath and the pigs. We never are to be contented in this
world, that's sartin; and now that they are comfortable in every
respect, they find that they are very uncomfortable, and having
obtained all their wishes, they wish everything back again; but as old
Maddocks used to say, `A good growl is better than a bad dinner' with
some people; and the greatest pleasure that they now have is to
grumble; and if that makes them happy, they must be happy all day
long--for the devil a bit do they leave off from morning till night.

"The first thing that I did was to send for Father McGrath, who had
been more away from home than usual--I presume, not finding things
quite so comfortable as they used to be. He told me that he had met
with Father O'Toole, and had a bit of a dialogue with him, which had
ended in a bit of a row, and that he had cudgelled Father O'Toole
well, and tore his gown off his back, and then tore it into shivers,--
that Father O'Toole had referred the case to the bishop, and that was
how the matter stood just then. `But,' says