randdaughter out o' Mount Kennedy gaol?"

Mike flushed to the roots of his hair and turned his back more
completely on his opposite neighbour.

"Sure, ye needn't think shame o' that," went on Jack, quick to
perceive that the joke was not appreciated. "If ye burnt the rick
itself, there's nobody hereabouts but 'ud say ye done right. But your
father's breaking his heart now bekase the loss o' the rick 'ull be
out o' your own pocket."

"What call has he to say any such thing at all?" said Mike, glancing
round fiercely.

"Och, bedad, doesn't every one know the way it is between the two of
yez? Sure, there never was a fellow in such luck as yourself, Mike
Clancy! Ye'll be the richest man between this and County Cork, an' let
alone the fortun', ye'll be havin' the greatest jewel of a wife. 'Pon
me word, if ye was to see the Misthress now of a Sunday!"

"Who's that?" said Mike absently.

"The Misthress--Miss Rorke!"

"Oh, aye, of course, Miss Rorke is the Misthress now," mused Mike to
himself.

"Well, if ye was to see her in her black silky dress an' the beautiful
feathers in her hat, an' her gould watch and chain an' all--'pon me
word, ye'd think it was the Queen."

Clancy did not answer, and McEvoy, more and more anxious to retrieve
his former error, waxed eloquent on the subject of Roseen, her beauty,
her wealth, and the bounties she lavished all round her.

"Look at the way she whipped off your father and mother there," he
remarked at last, "and the comfort she keeps them in! I b'lieve the
improvement in them since they went up above there is somethin'"--Jack
paused for an adjective and finally selected "outrageous." "Tay, they
do be tellin' me, at two and thruppence a pound no less, an' mate
wanst and twice in the day, an' a sup o' punch at night the way
they'd sleep sound! Sure, it's somethin' altogether"--again a
pause--"unmintionable!"

Jack actually leaned across the well of the car to peer into Mike's
face, but alas! the more choice and picturesque was his language, the
deeper seemed to be the gloom of Michael Clancy. At last, when within
a few yards of Donoughmor, Mike abruptly requested to be set down
there, and after thanking the man in somewhat tremulous tones, walked
away rapidly in the direction of his former home.

"Sure, what's the good of your going there?" shouted McEvoy, "the roof
is off of it yet, an' not a soul about. Come on home wid ye, can't
ye?"

"No, thank ye," said Mike, without t