cers. By
this time, the major was heartily shaking hands with O'Grady.

"I saw in the Gazette that you were hit again, O'Grady."

"Yes. I left one little memento of meself in Portugal, and it was
only right that I should lave another in Spain. It has been
worrying me a good deal, because I should have liked to have
brought them home to be buried in the same grave with me, so as to
have everything handy together. How they are ever to be collected
when the time comes bothers me entirely, when I can't even point
out where they are to be found."

"You have not lost your good spirits anyhow, O'Grady."

"I never shall, I hope, O'Connor; and even if I had been inclined
to, Terence would have brought them back again."

As they stood chatting, a manservant had placed the portmanteaus on
the box of a pretty open carriage, drawn by two horses.

"This is our state carriage, Terence, though we don't use it very
often for, when I go about by myself, I ride. Mary has a pony
carriage, and drives herself about.

"You remember Pat Cassidy, don't you?"

"Of course I do, now I look at him," Terence said. "It's your old
soldier servant," and he shook hands with the man. "He did not come
home with you, did he, father?"

"No, he was badly wounded at Talavera, and invalided home. They
thought that he would not be fit for service again, and so
discharged him; and he found his way here, and glad enough I was to
have him."

Aided by his father and O'Grady, Terence took his place in the
carriage. His father seated himself by his side, while Mary and
O'Grady had the opposite seat.

"There is one advantage in losing legs," O'Grady said. "We can stow
away much more comfortably in a carriage. Is this the nearest point
to your place?"

"Yes. It is four miles nearer than Ballyhovey, so we thought that
we might as well meet you here, and more comfortably than meeting
you in the town. It was Mary's suggestion. I think she would not
have liked to have kissed Terence in the public street."

"Nonsense, uncle!" Mary said indignantly. "Of course I should have
kissed him, anywhere. Are we not cousins? And didn't he save me
from being shut up in a nunnery, all my life?"

"All right, Mary, it is quite right that you should kiss him;
still, I should say that it was pleasanter to do so when you had
not a couple of score of loafers looking on, who would not know
that he was your cousin, and had saved you from a convent."

"You are looking well,