ibably touching in
the mere picture of the fireside, and the family gathered round it, talking
over little homely cares and canvassing the changes of each day's fortune.
I could sit here half the night and listen to Atlee telling how you lived,
and the sort of things that interested you.'

'So that you'd actually like to look at us?'

Donogan's eyes grew glassy, and his lips trembled, but he could not utter a
word.

'So you shall, then,' cried Dick resolutely. 'We'll start to-morrow by the
early train. You'll not object to a ten miles' walk, and we'll arrive for
dinner.'

'Do you know who it is you are inviting to your father's house? Do you know
that I am an escaped convict, with a price on my head this minute? Do you
know the penalty of giving me shelter, or even what the law calls comfort?'

'I know this, that in the heart of the Bog of Allen, you'll be far safer
than in the city of Dublin; that none shall ever learn who you are, nor, if
they did, is there one--the poorest in the place--would betray you.'

'It is of you, sir, I'm thinking, not of me,' said Donogan calmly.

'Don't fret yourself about us. We are well known in our county, and above
suspicion. Whenever you yourself should feel that your presence was like to
be a danger, I am quite willing to believe you'd take yourself off.'

'You judge me rightly, sir, and I am proud to see it; but how are you to
present me to your friends?'

'As a college acquaintance--a friend of Atlee's and of mine--a gentleman
who occupied the room next me. I can surely say that with truth.'

'And dined with you every day since you knew him. Why not add that?'

He laughed merrily over this conceit, and at last Donogan said, 'I've a
little kit of clothes--something decenter than these--up in Thomas Street,
No. 13, Mr. Kearney; the old house Lord Edward was shot in, and the safest
place in Dublin now, because it is so notorious. I'll step up for them this
evening, and I'll be ready to start when you like.'

'Here's good fortune to us, whatever we do next,' said Kearney, filling
both their glasses; and they touched the brims together, and clinked them
before they drained them.

CHAPTER XXVIII

'ON THE LEADS'

Kate Kearney's room was on the top of the castle, and 'gave' by a window
over the leads of a large square tower. On this space she had made a
little garden of a few flowers, to tend which was of what she called her
'dissipations.'

[Illustration: 'Is not