uch late scampers as these;
but you take my hints----well, don't be cross, and have it all your own
way if you like," said the young man, interrupting himself, dejectedly.

"I _am_ very cross to-night, Lysaght, so don't talk. But here we are, and
I am glad of it," and Katey knocked impatiently and loudly at the door of
their home. "Now don't go away sulky, there's a good boy," she cried after
her cousin, who turned towards the stables; "and, Lysaght, I have done the
rosettes for Lightfoot's headstall, which you asked me to make, though I
said I wouldn't--you shall have them in the morning. And now to give this
silly old woman her supper and a night's lodging," and followed by
Sally-the-tin still groaning heavily, she entered the house.

CHAPTER III.

Sleepless and miserable to Katey Tyrrel was the night that followed her
interview with the Stranger. The fearful and critical position in which
she was placed caused her, for the first time in her life, to go through a
rigid course of self-examination, the result of which but added to her
alarm and anxiety. For some months past the person she had just parted
from had been a sojourner in lodgings at Cahill's under circumstances of
great privacy--rarely venturing out during the day, and in the evening
only with secresy and caution. As that remote country, ill-supplied at the
period with police, (and even those of the most "ancient and quiet"
description,) and wholly inaccessible to bailiffs and all other
functionaries attendant on county sheriffs, was deemed peculiarly
favourable as quarters for that class of magnanimous men whose expenditure
happens to exceed their incomes, to the detriment of their tailors and
their own personal inconvenience, it was soon whispered, and as quickly
believed, that the resident at Cahill's was one of that generous
brotherhood, or in other words, was "a gentleman on his keeping."[24] In
her visits to the shop, which, from her idle though innocent life, were
frequent, Katey had several times encountered him as he sauntered in and
out. An intimacy sprang up. There was a frankness and a half-military air
in his deportment that interested her. He had evidently seen much of the
world and society, his conversation was lively and varied, his knowledge
and accomplishments, to the secluded country girl, seemed extensive, and
round all circled a halo of mystery, not the least of those attractions
for Katey, whose passion for riding to the Kilfane houn