ey've just as much as they can
to bear up with--then it's time for an old friend and neighbour to give a
timely warning, and cry "Stop.'"

'Have you done, Miss Betty?' And now his voice was more stern than before.

'I have not, nor near done, Mathew Kearney. I've said nothing of the way
you're bringing up your family--that son, in particular--to make him think
himself a young man of fortune, when you know, in your heart, you'll leave
him little more than the mortgages on the estate. I have not told you
that it's one of the jokes of the capital to call him the Honourable Dick
Kearney, and to ask him after his father the viscount.'

'You haven't done yet, Miss O'Shea?' said he, now with a thickened voice.

'No, not yet,' replied she calmly--'not yet; for I'd like to remind you
of the way you're behaving to the best of the whole of you--the only one,
indeed, that's worth much in the family--your daughter Kate.'

'Well, what have I done to wrong _her_?' said he, carried beyond his
prudence by so astounding a charge.

'The very worst you could do, Mathew Kearney; the only mischief it was in
your power, maybe. Look at the companion you have given her! Look at the
respectable young lady you've brought home to live with your decent child!'

'You'll not stop?' cried he, almost choking with passion.

'Not till I've told you why I came here, Mathew Kearney; for I'd beg you to
understand it was no interest about yourself or your doings brought me.
I came to tell you that I mean to be free about an old contract we once
made--that I revoke it all. I was fool enough to believe that an alliance
between our families would have made me entirely happy, and my nephew
Gorman O'Shea was brought up to think the same. I have lived to know
better, Mathew Kearney: I have lived to see that we don't suit each other
at all, and I have come here to declare to you formally that it's all off.
No nephew of mine shall come here for a wife. The heir to Shea's Barn
shan't bring the mistress of it out of Kilgobbin Castle.'

'Trust _me_ for that, old lady,' cried he, forgetting all his good manners
in his violent passion.

'You'll be all the freer to catch a young aide-de-camp from the Castle,'
said she sneeringly; 'or maybe, indeed, a young lord--a rank equal to your
own.'

'Haven't you said enough?' screamed he, wild with rage.

'No, nor half, or you wouldn't be standing there, wringing your hands with
passion and your hair bristling like a po