always dhressed like that, sur! What's the
good of a gintleman havin' an iligint pair o' legs
entirely, an' them in throusers tliat has no more
shape in them than omberella-cases? But the
wather's boiled now, and I'll make ye a dhrop
o' whisky-punch."

I gladly accepted the whisky-punch and a
piece of oat-cake, which were daintily spread
for me on a beautiful damask napkin, and with
fine glass and china, and a silver spoon, bearing
for crest a chained leopard couchant, and the
motto, "Je le tiens."

"Ye'r looking at the crest, sur," said the
old woman, who was the chief speaker,
anticipating one of the questions I was desirous,
shy, of asking. "It's a right good ould family
as any in the kingdom, though sorely failed,
that owned it. Did ye ever, it' ye wer' in these
parts before, hear tell of the O'Mores?"

"Many a time I have heard the name. This
was their house, then?"

"Wan o' their houses, for they had three, and
this was the smallest. They had a fine estate
in the county Watherford, and a grand mansion
in Dublin, an' horses, an' carriages, an' sarvents.
Och, but it's the pity to see them fine ould
families goin' to rack an' ruin, and the mushrooms
(parvenus) springin' up in their place."

The last of the flourishing O'Mores had
been the great-grandfather of the present
proprietor, I was told. He had left all the family
possessions intact to his son Feargus, whose
wildly extravagant habits had encumbered them
to some degree with post-obits before his
father's death, and continuing the same course
after coming into possession, he, during
his short and evil career, had contrived
to dissipate his fortune to such an extent,
that his son Michael continued all his life an
embarrassed man, even after the sale of both
the Dublin house and the Waterford estate.
This was " the owld masther," in whose service
Jimmy and Marget had lived as boy and girl,
children of his tenants, and in whose praises
both were loud and earnest.

But Michael's son, Cornelius—the young
masther—as I could gather rather from their
tone than from their words, bore little resemblance
to his father. Of a gloomy, obstinate and
despotic nature, he made his will absolute to
all around him, governing by fear, and carrying
out by the force of inflexible determination
whatever project he might conceive.

He lived chiefly in Dublin, at whose university
he had completed his education, and only
came to Rosscreagh occasionally, with a few
friends, for a month's shooting, fishing, or
boating.

"At last," pursued Marget, "news come that
the young masther was bringin' us home a
wife, an' ordhers that the place was to be done
up, inside and out, from top to bottom. An'
workmen come from Belfast, an' gardeners,
an' och! but we were up an' at work late an'
airly to get all ready in time. At last, down they
come, the masther an' the misthress, as handsome
a couple as ye'd see in a month o' Sundays,
an' a body sarvent, an' a lady's-maid, an* three
or four others beside.

"The misthress wasn't above eighteen to look
at, dark an' bright-eyed, an' quick-spoken, an'
seemingly with a way an' a will of her own.
'Twasn't long she kep' it, poor young thing!

"She wasn't of no family at all to spake of—
her father was a banker in Dublin—but she had
money, an' she was purty enough for any man
to be took with her, if she'd been a milkmaid.
She sang beautiful too, an' played the harp, that
it was betther than goin' to the play to hear an'
to see her, with her. lovely hands an' arrums on
the sthrings. An' ride she'd ride any horse in
the counthry-side.

"But she niver liked the place; that was the
only thing in her that went agen us; for she
was affable enough to everybody, in a sort of
short, spoiled-child way. An' she an' the
masther didn't always get on just as owld
sarvents, like Jimmy an' me—we weren't owld
then, but we were owld in the sarvice—liked to
see. She had a sort o' sharp, wilful manner
with him, when he wanted or didn't want her
to do something she was set agen or set upon,
and he was with her as he was with everybody
that opposed him, cold an' hard an' fixed-like;
an' that brought storms, but she always went to
the wall, an' had to give in to him.

"She was just like a child in a passion when
she was put out; she didn't care what she said,
or who heard her, an' she'd cry, before the
sarvents or any one, right out and sob, an' shake
her showldhers, an' that used to make the masther
madder than anything. He'd get white and set
his teeth and thremble with the rage, an' look
at her as if he'd like to sthrike her, poor,
passionate, foolish gairl that she was! Then when
she came to, she'd be ready enough at first
especially, to make it up again; but the masther
wouldn't, and many's the time he'd be two an'
three days, hardly spakin' to her, good or bad.

"She'd say to me—she was always 'specially
free with me, the poor thing—'He's in the
sulks again, Margaret; I don't know how to
please him, and I'm gettin' not to care. I wish
I was far away, far away from this place! I'm
sick of the say and the mountain, and never any
wan to speak to, and him as sulky as a bear!'
What could I say till her? If I thried to bid
her take patience, or to comfort her, she'd only
make answer, she couldn't take patience, she
never had, and as to preachin' to her, it only
bothered her worse.

"Well, at last there come down from Dublin a
houseful o' company, and the thought o' the
change, an' the preparation, seemed to set her
up again, an' she was full of a sort of childish
excitement.

"There was a young couple, the lady havin'
been a friend of hers before she married, a Mrs.
Kavanagh, and her sister, and two young
gentlemen, comerades of the masther, that had
been down here in the bachelor days, an' a
cousin o' the misthress's, a Mr Barry O'Brian.
Well, everything went smoothly, to all appearance;
the maslher wasn't the man to let the company