ut of the office, Peter Gill?'

'No, my lord, I'm going quiet and peaceable. I'm only asking my rights.'

'You're bidding hard to be kicked out, you are.'

'Am I to leave them here, or will your honour go over the books with me?'

'Leave the notes, sir, and go to the devil.'

'I will, my lord; and one comfort at least I'll have--it won't be harder to
put up with his temper.'

Mr. Gill's head barely escaped the heavy account-book which struck the door
above him as he escaped from the room, and Mathew Kearney sat back in his
chair and grasped the arms of it like one threatened with a fit.

'Where's Miss Kitty--where's my daughter?' cried he aloud, as though there
was some one within hearing. 'Taking the dogs a walk, I'll be bound,'
muttered he, 'or gone to see somebody's child with the measles, devil fear
her! She has plenty on her hands to do anywhere but at home. The place
might be going to rack and ruin for her if there was only a young colt to
look at, or a new litter of pigs! And so you think to frighten me, Peter
Gill! You've been doing the same thing every Easter, and every harvest,
these five-and-twenty years! I can only say I wish you had kept your threat
long ago, and the property wouldn't have as many tumble-down cabins and
ruined fences as it has now, and my rent-roll, too, wouldn't have been the
worse. I don't believe there's a man in Ireland more cruelly robbed than
myself. There isn't an estate in the county has not risen in value except
my own! There's not a landed gentleman hasn't laid by money in the barony
but myself, and if you were to believe the newspapers, I'm the hardest
landlord in the province of Leinster. Is that Mickey Doolan there? Mickey!'
cried he, opening the window, 'did you see Miss Kearney anywhere about?'

'Yes, my lord. I see her coming up the Bog road with Miss O'Shea.'

'The worse luck mine!' muttered he, as he closed the window, and leaned his
head on his hand.

CHAPTER XIX

AN UNWELCOME VISIT

If Mathew Kearney had been put to the question, he could not have concealed
the fact that the human being he most feared and dreaded in life was his
neighbour Miss Betty O'Shea.

With two years of seniority over him, Miss Betty had bullied him as a
child, snubbed him as a youth, and opposed and sneered at him ever after;
and to such an extent did her influence over his character extend,
according to his own belief, that there was not a single good trait of his
nature she