ain to take up with a Dublin
attorney--poor Tom Kennyfeck--the hack of the quarter sessions, serving
latitats and tithe notices over the country in his old gig--Indeed,
girls, I 'm sorry to speak that way of your father, but it 's well
known--"

A loud shriek interrupted the speech, and Mrs. Kennyfeck, in strong
hysterics, took her place beside Olivia.

"It will do her good, my dear," said Aunt Fanny to her niece, as she
chafed the hands and bathed the temples of her mother. "I was only
telling the truth; she'd never have married your father if Major Kennedy
had n't jilted her; and good luck it was he did, for he had two other
wives living at the time--just as your friend, Mr. Cashel, wanted to do
with your sister."

"Aunt--aunt--I entreat you to have done. Haven't you made mischief
enough?"

"Eaten up with vanity and self-conceit," resumed the old lady, not
heeding the interruption. "A French cook and a coach-and-four,--nothing
less! Let her scream, child--sure, I know it's good for her--it
stretches the lungs."

"Leave me--leave the room!" cried Miss Kennyfeck, whose efforts at
calmness were rendered fruitless by the torrent of her aunt's eloquence.

"Indeed I will, my dear: I'll leave the house, too. Sorry I am that I
ever set foot in it. What with the noise and the racket night and day,
it's more like a lunatic asylum than a respectable residence."

"Send her away--send her away!" screamed Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a cry of
horror.

"Do, aunt--do leave the room."

"I'm going--I'm going, young lady; but I suppose I may drink my cup of
tea first--it's the last I 'll ever taste in the same house;" and she
reseated herself at the table with a most provoking composure. "I came
here," resumed she, "for no advantage of mine. I leave you without
regret, because I see how your poor fool of a father, and your vain,
conceited mother--"

"Aunt, you are really too bad. Have you no feeling?"

"That's just what comes of it," said she, stirring her tea tranquilly.
"You set up for people of fashion, and you don't know that people of
fashion are twice as shrewd and 'cute as yourself. Faith, my dear,
they'd buy and sell you, every one. What are they at all day, but
roguery and schemes of one kind or other, and then after 'doing' you,
home they go, and laugh at your mother's vulgarity!"

A fresh torrent of cries from Mrs. Kennyfeck seemed to show that
unconsciousness was not among her symptoms, and Miss Kennyfeck now
hasten