o spake ill of the blood."

"God forbid! But go on, Kelly."

"Well, so, from that out, I began to think of it in arnest. The Lord
forgive me! but my first thoughts was how I'd like to pull down Barry
Lynch; and my second that I'd not demane myself by marrying the sisther
of such an out-and-out ruffian, and that it wouldn't become me to live
on the money that'd been got by chating your lordship's grandfather."

"My lordship's grandfather ought to have looked after that himself. If
those are all your scruples they needn't stick in your throat much."

"I said as much as that to myself, too. So I soon went to work. I was
rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me. They put it into
her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all. However, by degrees, I
asked her plump, whether she'd any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though
she didn't say 'yes,' she didn't say 'no.'"

"But how the devil, man, did you manage to get at her? I'm told Barry
watches her like a dragon, ever since he read his father's will."

"He couldn't watch her so close, but what she could make her way down
to mother's shop now and again. Or, for the matter of that, but what I
could make my way up to the house."

"That's true, for what need she mind Barry, now? She may marry whom
she pleases, and needn't tell him, unless she likes, until the priest
has his book ready."

"Ah, my lord! but there's the rub. She is afraid of Barry; and though
she didn't say so, she won't agree to tell him, or to let me tell him,
or just to let the priest walk into the house without telling him.
She's fond of Barry, though, for the life of me, I can't see what there
is in him for anybody to be fond of. He and his father led her the
divil's own life mewed up there, because she wouldn't be a nun. But
still is both fond and afraid of him; and, though I don't think she'll
marry anybody else--at laist not yet awhile, I don't think she'll ever
get courage to marry me--at any rate, not in the ordinary way."

"Why then, Martin, you must do something extraordinary, I suppose."

"That's just it, my lord; and what I wanted was, to ask your
lordship's advice and sanction, like."

"Sanction! Why I shouldn't think you'd want anybody's sanction for
marrying a wife with four hundred a-year. But, if that's anything to
you, I can assure you I approve of it."

"Thank you, my lord. That's kind."

"To tell the truth," continued Lord Ballindine, "I've a little of your
own first fee