y disappointment and defeat.

"What!" said the father, "is it snowin', Frank? Your clothes are covered
wid snow!"

"Lord, guard us!" exclaimed the mother, "is that blood upon your face,
Frank?"

"It is snowin', and it is blood that's upon my face," answered Frank,
moodily--"do you want to know more news?"

"Why, ay indeed," replied his mother, "we want to hear how you came to
be cut?"

"You won't hear it, thin," he replied.

The mother was silent, for she knew the terrible fits of passion to
which he was subject.

The father groaned deeply, and exclaimed--"Frank, Frank, God help you,
an' show you the sins you're committin', an' the heart-scaldin' you're
givin' both your mother and me! What fresh skrimmage had you that you're
in that state?"

"Spare yourself the throuble of inquirin'," he replied: "all I can say,"
he continued, starting up into sudden fury--"all I can say, an' I say
it--I swear it--where's the prayer-book?" and he ran frantically to a
shelf beside the dresser on which the prayer-book lay,--"ay! by him
that made me I'll sware it--by this sacred book, while I live, Mike
Keillaghan, the husband of Peggy Gartland you'll never be, if I should
swing for it! Now you all seen I kissed the book!" as he spoke, he
tossed it back upon the shelf.

The mirth that had prevailed in the family was immediately hushed, and a
dead silence ensued; Frank sat down, but instantly rose again, and flung
the chair from him with such violence that it was crashed to pieces;
he muttered oaths and curses, ground his teeth, and betrayed all the
symptoms of jealousy, hatred, and disappointment.

"Frank, a bouchal," said Barny, commencing to address him in a
conciliatory tone--"Frank, man alive----"

"Hould your tongue, I say, you blind vagabone, or by the night above us,
I'll break your fiddle over your skull, if you dar to say another word.
What I swore I'll do, an' let no one crass me."

He was a powerful young man, and such was his temper, and so well was
it understood, that not one of the family durst venture a word of
remonstrance.

The father arose, went to the door, and returned. "Barny," said he,
"you must content yourself where you are for this night. It's snowin'
heavily, so you had betther sleep wid Rody; I see a light in the barn, I
suppose he's after bringing in his bed an' makin' it."

"I'll do any thing," replied the poor fiddler, now apprehensive of
violence from the outrageous temper of young Frank.