or a bottle iv the old stuff?' 'How'll ye do it?' sez I.
'Trust me,' sez he. 'Give me the cans. 'Tis cold out iv doors, an'
I've a pair iv candle-moulds.'

"An' it's the sacred truth I'm tellin' ye all, an' if ye run across
Bill Moran he'll back me word; for what does Dave Harney do but lug off
me six cans, freeze the milk into his candle-moulds, an' trade them in
to bill Moran for a bottle iv tanglefoot!"

As soon as he could be heard through the laughter, Harney raised his
voice. "It's true, as McCarthy tells, but he's only told you the half.
Can't you guess the rest, Matt?"

Matt shook his head.

"Bein' short on milk myself, an' not over much sugar, I doctored three
of your cans with water, which went to make the candles. An' by the
bye, I had milk in my coffee for a month to come."

"It's on me, Dave," McCarthy admitted. "'Tis only that yer me host, or
I'd be shockin' the ladies with yer nortorious disgraces. But I'll
lave ye live this time, Dave. Come, spade the partin' guests; we must
be movin'."

"No ye don't, ye young laddy-buck," he interposed, as St. Vincent
started to take Frona down the hill, "'Tis her foster-daddy sees her
home this night."

McCarthy laughed in his silent way and offered his arm to Frona, while
St. Vincent joined in the laugh against himself, dropped back, and
joined Miss Mortimer and Baron Courbertin.

"What's this I'm hearin' about you an' Vincent?" Matt bluntly asked as
soon as they had drawn apart from the others.

He looked at her with his keen gray eyes, but she returned the look
quite as keenly.

"How should I know what you have been hearing?" she countered.

"Whin the talk goes round iv a maid an' a man, the one pretty an' the
other not unhandsome, both young an' neither married, does it 'token
aught but the one thing?"

"Yes?"

"An' the one thing the greatest thing in all the world."

"Well?" Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined to
help him.

"Marriage, iv course," he blurted out. "'Tis said it looks that way
with the pair of ye."

"But is it said that it _is_ that way?"

"Isn't the looks iv it enough ?" he demanded.

"No; and you are old enough to know better. Mr. St. Vincent and I--we
enjoy each other as friends, that is all. But suppose it is as you
say, what of it?"

"Well," McCarthy deliberated, "there's other talk goes round, 'Tis
said Vincent is over-thick with a jade down in the town--Lucile, they
speak iv her."