her brother intended to turn Protestant
for the reasons he told me?"

"It's like enough, I'm thinking."

"Does she know? The girl?"

"Not a breath! And I would not be the one to tell her," Uncle Ulick
added, with some grimness.

"Yet it may be necessary?"

Uncle Ulick shook his fist at a particularly importunate beggar who had
ventured across the forecourt. "It's a gift the little people never
gave me to tell unpleasant things," he said. "And if you'll be told by
me, Colonel, you'll travel easy. The girl has a spirit, and you'll not
persuade her to stand in her brother's light, at all, at all! She has
it fast that her grandfather wronged him--and old Sir Michael was
queer-tempered at times, God forbid I should say the other! The gift to
her will go for nothing, you'll see!"

"She must be a very noble girl."

"Devil a better has He made!"

"But if her grandfather was right in thinking so ill of his grandson?"

"I'm not saying he wasn't," Uncle Ulick muttered.

"Then we must not let her set the will aside."

Ulick Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. "Let?" he said. "Faith! it's but
little it'll be a question of that! James is for taking, and she's for
giving! He's her white swan, and to her mind, sleeping or waking, as
Darby says, he'd tread on eggs and sorra a chick the less! Let? Who's
to hinder?"

"You."

"It's easiness has been my ruin, and faith! it's too late to change."

"Then I?"

Uncle Ulick smiled. "To be sure," he said slily, "there's you,
Colonel."

"The whole estate is mine, you see, in law."

"Ay, but there's no law west of Tralee," Uncle Ulick retorted. "That's
where old Sir Michael made his mistake. Anywhere through the length and
breadth of old Ireland, if 'twas in the Four Courts themselves, and all
the garrison round you, you'd be on honour, Colonel, to take no
advantage. But here it would not be the cold shoulder and a little
unpleasantness, and a meeting or two on the ground, that's neither here
nor there--that you'd be like to taste. I'd not be knowing what would
happen if it went about that you were ousting them that had the right,
and you a Protestant. He's not the great favourite, James McMurrough,
and whether he or the girl took most 'd be a mighty small matter. But
if you think to twist it, so as to play cuckoo--though with the height
of fair meaning and not spying a silver penny of profit for yourself,
Colonel--I take leave to tell you, he's a most unpopular bird."

"But,