ver get married. It's your own hearts, both of them,
that ought to be set on it."

As a journalist of some years' experience she had, of course, outgrown
all sentiment. But she was shocked by the cool indifference of these
lovers who were prepared to marry merely to oblige a stranger whom they
had never seen before and were not likely to see again. But Mary
Nally did not seem to feel that there was any want of proper ardour in
Andrew's way of settling the date of their wedding.

"If you don't get up out of your chair," she said, "and be off to Father
McFadden to tell him what's wanted, it'll never be done either to-day or
any other day."

Andrew roused himself with a sigh. He took his hat from a peg, and a
stout walking-stick from behind a porter barrel. Then, politely but
firmly, he put the two women out of the house and locked the door
behind them. He was ready to marry Mary Nally--and her shop. He was not
prepared to trust her among his porter barrels and his whisky bottles
until the ceremony was actually completed.

The law requires that a certain decorous pause shall be made before the
celebration of a marriage. Papers must be signed or banns published in
church. But Father McFadden had lived so long on Inishrua that he had
lost respect for law and perhaps forgotten what the law was. Besides,
Andrew was King of the island by right of popular assent, and what
is the use of being a king if you cannot override a tiresome law? The
marriage took place that afternoon, and Miss Clarence was present,
acting as a kind of bridesmaid.

No sheep or heifers were killed, and no inordinate quantity of porter
was drunk. There was, indeed, no special festivity on the island, and
the other inhabitants took very little notice of what was happening.
They were perhaps, as Michael Kane said, too sleepy to be stirred with
excitement. But in spite of the general apathy, Miss Clarence was fairly
well satisfied with her experience. She felt that she had a really novel
subject for the first of her articles on the life and customs of the
Irish islanders.

The one thing that vexed her was the thought that Michael Kane had been
laughing at her while he talked to her on the way out to the island. On
the way home she spoke to him severely.

"You've no right," she said, "to tell a pack of lies to a stranger who
happens to be a passenger in your boat."

"Lies!" said Michael. "What lie was in it? Didn't I say they'd be
married to-day, and