ve, illegal, but they
happen in Ireland. The committee was at present, apparently, in full
session, judging by the flood of conversation that flowed in to us
through the open door. The request for the pen caused an instant hush,
followed at an interval by the slamming of drawers and other sounds of
search.

"Ah, what's on ye delaying this way?" said Mrs. Coolahan irritably,
advancing into the shop. "Sure I seen the pin with Helayna this
morning."

At the moment all that we could see of the junior postmistress was her
long bare shins, framed by the low-browed doorway, as she stood on the
counter to further her researches on a top shelf.

"The Lord look down in pity on me this day!" said Mrs. Coolahan, in
exalted and bitter indignation, "or on any poor creature that's striving
to earn her living and has the likes o' ye to be thrusting to!"

We here attached ourselves to the outskirts of the search, which had by
this time drawn into its vortex a couple of countrywomen with shawls
over their heads, who had hitherto sat in decorous but observant
stillness in the background. Katty Ann was rapidly examining tall
bottles of sugar-stick, accustomed receptacles apparently for the pen.
Helayna's raven fringe showed traces of a dive into the flour-bin. Mrs.
Coolahan remained motionless in the midst, her eyes fixed on the
ceiling, an exposition of suffering and of eternal remoteness from the
ungodly.

We were now aware for the first time of the presence of Mr. Coolahan, a
taciturn person, with a blue-black chin and a gloomy demeanour.

"Where had ye it last?" he demanded.

"I seen Katty Ann with it in the cow-house, sir," volunteered a small
female Coolahan from beneath the flap of the counter.

Katty Ann, with a vindictive eye at the tell-tale, vanished.

"That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!" chanted Mrs.
Coolahan. "Such a mee-aw! Such a thing to happen to me--the pure, decent
woman! G'wout!" This, the imperative of the verb to retire, was hurtled
at the tell-tale, who, presuming on her services, had incautiously left
the covert of the counter, and had laid a sticky hand on her mother's
skirts.

"Only that some was praying for me," pursued Mrs. Coolahan, "it might as
well be the Inspector that came in the office, asking for the pin, an'
if that was the way we might all go under the sod! Sich a mee-aw!"

"Musha! Musha!" breathed, prayerfully, one of the shawled women.

At this juncture I mounted on an up-