cation, who, while reserving the power of
comporting himself like a gentleman, preferred as a rule to assimilate
his demeanour to that of one of his own tenants (with whom, it may be
mentioned, he was extremely popular). Many young men habitually dined
out on Sir Thomas's brogue and his unwearying efforts to dispose of his
eight daughters.

His wife was a handsome, amiable, and by no means unintelligent lady
upon whose back the eight daughters had ploughed and had left long
furrows. She was not infrequently spoken of as "that un_for_tunate Lady
Purcell!" with a greater or less broadening of the accent on the second
syllable according to the social standard of the speaker. Her tastes
were comprehended and sympathised with by her gardener, and by the
clerk at Mudie's who refilled her box. The view taken of her by her
husband and family was mainly a negative one, and was tinged throughout
by the facts that she was afraid to drive anything more ambitious than
the donkey, and had been known to mistake the kennel terrier for a hound
puppy. She had succeeded in transmitting to her daughters her very
successful complexion and blue eyes, but her responsibility for them had
apparently gone no further. The Misses Purcell faced the world and its
somewhat excessive interest in them with the intrepid _esprit de corps_
of a square of British infantry, but among themselves they fought, as
the coachman was wont to say--and no one knew better than the
coachman--"both bitther an regular, like man and wife!" They ranged in
age from about five and twenty downwards, sportswomen, warriors, and
buccaneers, all of them, and it would be difficult to determine whether
resentment or a certain secret pride bulked the larger in their male
parent's mind in connection with them.

"Are you going to draw Clashnacrona to-morrow?" asked Muriel, the second
of the gang (Lady Purcell, it should have been mentioned, had also been
responsible for her daughters' names), rising from her chair and pouring
what was left of her after dinner coffee into her saucer, a proceeding
which caused four pairs of lambent eyes to discover themselves in the
coiled mat of red setters that occupied the drawing-room hearthrug.

"No, I am not," said Sir Thomas, "and, what's more, I'm coming in early.
I'm a fool to go hunting at all at this time o' year, with half the
potatoes not out of the ground." He rose, and using the toe of his boot
as the coulter of a plough, made a way fo