o' the night,
for you'll not go to the Midnight Mass, and why don't you be off wid you
at wanst?"

Frank shrugged his shoulders two or three times, being loth to leave
the music and dancing; but on seeing his father about to address him
in sharper language, he went out with a frown on his brows, and a
half-smothered imprecation bursting from his lips.

He had not proceeded more than a few yards from the door, when he met
Rody Teague, his father's servant, on his way to the kitchen. "Rody,"
said he, "isn't this a purty business? My father wantin' to send me down
to Owen Reillaghan's; when, by the vartue o' my oath, I'd as soon go
half way into hell, as to any place where his son, Mike Reillaghan, 'ud
be. How will I manage, Rody?"

"Why," replied Rody, "as to meetin' wid Mike, take my advice and avoid
him. And what is more I'd give up Peggy Gartland for good. Isn't it a
mane thing for you, Frank, to be hangin' afther a girl that's fonder
of another than she is of yourself. By this and by that, I'd no more do
it--avvouh! catch me at it--I'd have spunk in me."

Frank's brow darkened as Rody spoke; instead of instantly replying', he
was silent and appeared to be debating some point in his own mind, on
which he had not come to a determination.

"My father didn't hear of the fight between Mike and me?" said he,
interrogatively--"do you think he did, Rody?"

"Not to my knowledge," replied the servant; "if he did, he wouldn't
surely send you down; but talking of the fight, you are known to be a
stout, well-fought boy--no doubt of that--still, I say, you had no right
to provoke Mike as you did, who, it's well known, could bate any two men
in the parish; and so sign, you got yourself dacently trounced, about a
girl that doesn't love a bone in your skin."

"He disgraced me, Rody," observed Frank--"I can't rise my head; and
you know I was thought, by all the parish, as good a man as him. No, I
wouldn't, this blessed Christmas Eve above us, for all that ever my name
was worth, be disgraced by him as I am. But--hould, man--have patience!"

"Throth and, Frank, that's what you never had," said Eody; "and as to
bein' disgraced, you disgraced yourself. What right had you to challenge
the boy to fight, and to strike him into the bargain, bekase Peggy
Gartland danced with him, and wouldn't go out wid you? Death alive, sure
that wasn't his fault."

Every word of reproof which proceeded from Rody's lips but strengthened
Frank's ra