ere; but
I'm sore afraid my mother saw me sitting on the car, and I think I had
better be going home and letting you finish this marriage."

"What's that you're saying?" said Kate. "You won't go out of this house
till you've danced a reel with me, and now sit down at the table next
to me; and, Peter, you sit on the other side of him, so that he won't
run away to his mother."

Her eyes were as bright as coals of fire, and she called to her father,
who was at the end of the table, to have another slice of pig's head,
and to the piper, who was having his supper in the window, to have a
bit more; and then she turned to Pat, who said never a word, and
laughed at him for having nothing to say.

It seemed to them as if there was no one in the room but Kate; and
afterwards they remembered things. Ned remembered that Kate had seemed
to put Pat out of her mind. She had stood talking to her husband, and
she had said that he must dance with her, though it was no amusement to
a girl to dance opposite Peter. And Mary, Ned's wife, remembered how
Kate, though she had danced with Peter in the first reel, had not been
able to keep her eyes from the corner where Pat sat sulking, and that,
sudden-like, she had grown weary of Peter. Mary remembered she had seen
a wild look pass in Kate's eyes, and that she had gone over to Pat and
pulled him out.

It was a pleasure for a girl to dance opposite to Pat, so cleverly did
his feet move to the tune. And everyone was admiring them when Pat
cried out:--

"I'm going home. I bid you all good-night; here finish this wedding as
you like."

And before anyone could stop him he had run out of the house.

"Peter, go after him," Kate said; "bring him back. It would be ill luck
on our wedding night for anyone to leave us like that."

Peter went out of the door, and was away some time; but he came back
without Pat.

"The night is that dark, I lost him," he said. Then Kate did not seem
to care what she said. Her black hair fell down, and she told Peter he
was a fool, and that he should have run faster. Her mother said it was
the porter that had been too much for her; but she said it was the
priest's blessing, and this frightened everyone. But, after saying all
this, she went to her husband, saying that he was very good to her, and
she had no fault to find with him. But no sooner were the words out of
her mouth than her mind seemed to wander, and everyone had expected her
to run out of the house. Bu