"Many's the time I hard the story from
Jamie's mother, rest her sowl!" Mary went on.
"An' it's the fine fortune Dillon an' Betty
made in Ingia. Two years back, when the last
of the brothers died without childer, we hard
that Sir Dillon was comin' back to end his days
in Castle Craigie. But that news wasn't stale till
we hard o' his death, poor man! An' now
Betty's comin' back her lone, a rich woman, an'
a fine lady. An' I'll just ax you, cousin Penny,
if it wouldn't fit her betther to be lookin' afther
Jamie there that offered her the shelter o' the
roof when she was in need o't, than to be
huntin' up a pack o' highflyers, the very set
that sneered an' sniggered over her disgrace in
the dhrawn-room at the castle the day she was
turned from the gates?"

Cousin Penny had given attentive ear to the
wife, and now she turned to the husband.

"What do you say to that now, Jamie?"
she asked, with a knowing twinkle of her
shrewd bright eyes.

"I say this," cried Jamie, crackling and folding
at his paper with energy. " I say that the
man or boy, it's all wan, that does a good turn
expectin' to be paid for it, desarves no more
thanks than a man that sells a cow and dhrives
a good bargain. An' I say that Mary ought to
be ashamed to sit there talking of sich a thing
that happened forty year ago, an' if Ailsie was
here she wouldn't—but good luck to her! there
she is hersel', gone past the window."

All the three pair of eyes were now turned to
the doorway, whose sunny space was obscured
for a moment by as pretty a figure as any lover
of fresh and pleasant sights could wish to see.
This was a ripe-faced, dark-haired, country girl,
with her coarse straw bonnet tipped over her
forehead to save her eyes from the sun, and her
neat print gown tucked tidily up over her
white petticoat.

"Come in, Ailsie!" cried Jamie, " come in an'
see your cousin, Penny McCambridge, from
Lough Neagh side, that was to have been your
godmother, an' has come every fut o' the road
from that to this, to see what sort o' lass you've
turned out."

"Make haste an' make us the cup o' tay,"
said her mother. " I hope you didn't forget to
bring us a grain o' the best green from Misther
McShane's? Good girl! An' how did yer eggs
an' butter sell? I'll lay you a shillin' you haven't
the sign o' either wan or the other to set before
the sthranger this day!"

"Maybe I haven't though!" said Ailsie,
laughing. " It's by the fine good luck I put by
two nice little pats undher a dish, afore I went
off this mornin'. An' as for eggs, if Mehaffy
hasn't laid wan afore this time o' day, I'll put
her in the pot for a lazy big hen, an' cousin
Penny 'll stay an' help to ate her."

A nice little meal was set, and Ailsie flung
herself on a bench to rest.

"An' now you'll have breath to tell us the
news, Ailsie," said Mary the mother, sipping her
tea complacently. " What's doin' an' sayin' in
Portrush about Lady Betty?"

"Oh throth, mother!" said Ailsie, tossing
her head, "throth I'm sick, sore, an' tired,
hearin' o' the quare old house she's pulled down
on her back, poor body! Sich gregin' an'
comparin' you never hard since the day you were
born. The frien's o' wan MacQuillan, an' the
frien's o' another, at it hard an' fast for which 'll
have the best chance of comin' in for the ould
lady's favour. An' sich preparations! Mrs.
Quinn, the housekeeper, took me all through
the castle to see the new grandeur; an' sich
curtains, an' pictures, an' marble images, an' sich
lookin'-glasses! feth, when I went to the dhrawn-
room door, I thought I'd gone crazy, for half a
dozen other Ailsies started up in the comers an'
all over the walls, an' come to meet me with
their baskets on their arms. An' then there's
the ball-room where the dancin's to be, all hung
round with green things, an' the floor as slippy
an' as shiny as the duck pond was last Christmas
in the long frost. An' I went into Miss
O'Trimmins, the dressmaker, to see if her
toothache was better, an' I do declare she could
hardly reach me her little finger across the
heaps of silks an' muzlins that she had piled
about her there in her room. An' while I was
there, a carriage dashed up to the door, an' out
stepped the five Miss MacQuillans from Bally
Scuffling, an' in they all came to have their
dresses tried on. An' Miss O'Trimmins kept
me to hold the pins while, she was fittin' them,
for all her girls were that busy they could
hardly stop to thread their needles. An' sich
pinchin' an' screwin'! When they went away,
I said to Miss O'Trimmins, ' I'm thankful,'
says I, 'that none o' these gowns is for me.'
An' she laughed, and says she, ' I wouldn't put
it past you, Ailsie, to be right glad to go to the
same ball if you got the chance.'

"' I'm not so sure o' that,' says I, ' but, as for
chance, my name's MacQuillan as well as its
theirs that were here this minute lookin' at me
as if I was the dirt undher their feet. An' put
it to pride or not,' says I, ' but I do think, if I
was fixed up grand, I could manage to cut as
good a figure in a ball-room as e'er a wan o'
them red-nosed things that are goin' to dress
themsel's up in all this fine grass-coloured satin!'
It was very impident an' ill done o' me to make
such a speech," said Ailsie, blushing at her
confession, which had sent cousin Penny into fits of
laughter, "but my blood was up, somehow, with
the looks o' them old things from Bally Scuffling,
an' I couldn't hold my tongue!"

"Go on, go on, Ailsie dear!" said Penny,
wiping her eyes.

"Oh, then," said Ailsie, " she began talkin'
the same kind o' stuff that they were botherin'
me with the day through, axin' me why my
father hadn't sent word to Lady Betty like the
rest o' the MacQuillans, tellin' me we were the
only wans o' the name that hadn't spoken. It's
just the wan word in all their mouths. Mrs.
Maginty, that buys my eggs, she was at it, an'
ould Dan Carr, that takes my butter from me, I
thought I'd never get him talked down, an'
Nancy McDonnell that was sellin' sweeties in