aring
home and he began to know the people. "Lord save us, there's Tommy
Bill-beg--how do, Tommy? And there's ould Betty! My gough, she's in
yet--how do, mawther? There's little Juan Caine growed up to a man!
How do, Johnny, and how's the girls and how's the ould man, and how's
yourself? Goodness me, here's Liza Corlett, and a baby at her----! I
knew her when she was no more than a babby herself." This last remark
to the English driver who was coming up sedately with his landau at the
tail of the springless cart.

"Drive on, Billiam! Come up, ould girl--just a taste of the whip,
Billiam! Do her no harm at all. Bishop's Court! Deary me, the ould house
is in the same place still."

At length the square tower of Ballaugh

Church was seen above the trees with the last rays of the setting sun
on its topmost story, and then Davy's eagerness swept down all his
patience. He jumped up in the cart at the peril of being flung out, took
off his billycock, whirled it round his head, bellowed "Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hurrah!" After that he would have leaped alongside to the ground and
run. "Hould hard!" he cried, "I'll bate the best mare that's going." But
Billiam pinned him down to the seat with one hand while he whipped up
the horse to a gallop with the other.

They arrived at Ballavolly an hour and a half before they were expected.
Mistress Kinvig was washing dishes in a tub on the kitchen table. Kinvig
himself was sitting lame with rheumatism in the "elber chair" by the
ingle. They wiped down a chair for Davy this time.

"And Nelly," said Davy. "Where's Nelly?"

"She's coming, Capt'n," said Kinvig. "Nelly!" he called up the kitchen
stairs, with a knowing wink at Davy, "Here's a gentleman asking after
you."

Davy was dying of impatience. Would she be the same dear old Nell?

"Nell--Nelly," he shouted, "I've kep' my word."

"Aw, give her time, Capt'n," said Kinvig; "a new frock isn't rigged up
in no time, not to spake of a silk handkercher going pinning round your
throat."

But Davy, who had waited ten years, would not wait a minute longer, and
he was making for the stairs with the purpose of invading Nell's own
bedroom, when the lady herself came sweeping down on tiptoes. Davy saw
her coming in a cloud of silk, and at the next moment the slippery stuff
was crumbling, and whisking, and creaking under his hands, for his arms
were full of it.

"Aw, mawther," said he. "They're like honeysuckles--don't spake to me
for a week. Ma