hat, maybe after
a jig two hours long; and there was a dwarf that tould fortunes, and
a friar that sould gospels agin fever, and fallin' sickness, and
ballad-singers, and play-actors. Musha, there never was the like of it;"
and in this strain did, she pour forth a flood of impassioned eloquence
on the recollection of those carnal pleasures and enjoyments which, but
a few minutes before, she had condemned so rigidly in others, nor was it
till at the very close of her speech that she suddenly perceived how she
had wandered from her text; then with a heavy groan she muttered--"Ayeh!
we're sinful craytures, the best of us."

Kerry responded to the sentiment with a fac-simile sigh, and the peace
was ratified.

"You wouldn't believe now what Miss Kate is bringing over with
her--faix, you wouldn't believe it."

"Maybe a monkey," said Mrs. Branagan, who had a vague notion that France
lay somewhere within the tropics.

"Worse nor that."

"Is it a bear?" asked she again.

"No, but a French maid, to dress her hair, and powder her, and put
patches on her face."

"Whisht, I tell you," cried Mrs. Branagan, "and don't be talking that
way. Miss Kate was never the one to turn to the likes of them things."

"'Tis truth I'm telling ye then; I heerd it all between the master and
Master Mark, and afterwards with ould Sir Archy, and the three of them
is in a raal fright about the maid; they say she'll be the divil for
impidence."

"Will she then!" said Mrs. Branagan, with an eye glistening in
anticipation of battle.

"The never a day's peace or ease we're to have again, when she's
here--'tis what the master says. 'I pity poor Mrs. Branagan,' says he;
'she's a quiet crayture that wont take her own part, and----'"

"Won't I? Be my conscience, we'll soon see that."

"Them's his words--'and if Kerry and she don't lay their heads together
to make the place too hot for her, she'll bully the pair of them.'"

"Lave it to myself--lave it to me alone, Kerry O'Leary."

"I was thinking that same, ma'am," said Kerry, with a droll leer as he
spoke; "I'd take the odds on you any day, and never ask the name of the
other horse."

"I'll lay the mark of my fingers on her av she says 'pays,'" said Mrs.
Branagan, with an energy that looked like truth.

Meanwhile, Kerry, perceiving that her temper was up, spared nothing to
aggravate her passion, retailing every possible and impossible affront
the new visitor might pass off on her, and express