e avenue by Miss Betty on her old
chestnut mare Judy, a small bog-boy mounted on the croup behind to act as
groom; for in this way Paddy Walshe was accustomed to travel, without the
slightest consciousness that he was not in strict conformity with the ways
of Rotten Row and the 'Bois.'

That there was nothing 'stuck-up' or pretentious about this mode of being
accompanied by one's groom--a proposition scarcely assailable--was Miss
Betty's declaration, delivered in a sort of challenge to the world. Indeed,
certain ticklesome tendencies in Judy, particularly when touched with the
heel, seemed to offer the strongest protest against the practice; for
whenever pushed to any increase of speed or admonished in any way, the
beast usually responded by a hoist of the haunches, which invariably
compelled Paddy to clasp his mistress round the waist for safety--a
situation which, however repugnant to maiden bashfulness, time, and perhaps
necessity, had reconciled her to. At all events, poor Paddy's terror would
have been the amplest refutation of scandal, while the stern immobility of
Miss Betty during the embrace would have silenced even malevolence.

On the present occasion, a sharp canter of several miles had reduced Judy
to a very quiet and decorous pace, so that Paddy and his mistress sat
almost back to back--a combination that only long habit enabled Kate to
witness without laughing.

'Are you alone up at the castle, dear?' asked Miss Betty, as she rode
along at her side; 'or have you the house full of what the papers call
"distinguished company"?'

'We are quite alone, godmother. My brother is with us, but we have no
strangers.'

'I am glad of it. I've come over to "have it out" with your father, and
it's pleasant to know we shall be to ourselves.'

Now, as this announcement of having 'it out' conveyed to Kate's mind
nothing short of an open declaration of war, a day of reckoning on which
Miss O'Shea would come prepared with a full indictment, and a resolution to
prosecute to conviction, the poor girl shuddered at a prospect so certain
to end in calamity.

'Papa is very far from well, godmother,' said she, in a mild way.

'So they tell me in the town,' said the other snappishly. 'His brother
magistrates said that the day he came in, about that supposed attack--the
memorable search for arms--'

'Supposed attack! but, godmother, pray don't imagine we had invented all
that. I think you know me well enough and long enoug