g
evinced his patriotism by paying a year's subscription in advance to
the "Nation" newspaper, and with his mind fully made up to bring Anty
away to Dublin with as little delay as possible.

IV. THE DUNMORE INN

Anty Lynch was not the prettiest, or the youngest girl in Connaught;
nor would Martin have affirmed her to be so, unless he had been very
much inebriated indeed. However young she might have been once, she was
never pretty; but, in all Ireland, there was not a more single-hearted,
simple-minded young woman. I do not use the word simple as foolish;
for, though uneducated, she was not foolish. But she was unaffected,
honest, humble, and true, entertaining a very lowly idea of her own
value, and unelated by her newly acquired wealth.

She had been so little thought of all her life by others, that she
had never learned to think much of herself; she had had but few
acquaintances, and no friends, and had spent her life, hitherto,
so quietly and silently, that her apparent apathy was attributable
rather to want of subjects of excitement, than to any sluggishness of
disposition. Her mother had died early; and, since then, the only case
in which Anty had been called on to exercise her own judgment, was in
refusing to comply with her father's wish that she should become a
nun. On this subject, though often pressed, she had remained positive,
always pleading that she felt no call to the sacred duties which would
be required, and innocently assuring her father, that, if allowed to
remain at home, she would cause him no trouble, and but little expense.

So she had remained at home, and had inured herself to bear without
grumbling, or thinking that she had cause for grumbling, the petulance
of her father, and the more cruel harshness and ill-humour of her
brother. In all the family schemes of aggrandisement she had been set
aside, and Barry had been intended by the father as the scion on whom
all the family honours were to fall. His education had been expensive,
his allowance liberal, and his whims permitted; while Anty was never
better dressed than a decent English servant, and had been taught
nothing save the lessons she had learnt from her mother, who died when
she was but thirteen.

Mrs Lynch had died before the commencement of Sim's palmy days. They
had seen no company in her time,--for they were then only rising
people; and, since that, the great friends to whom Sim, in his wealth,
had attached himself, a