rdly cowld in the clay."

"Yerra, look at her! She thinks she's wan of the gintry. Oh my! she's
blushin'. 'T wasn't so long ago that you could sow praties in her
face."

"I suppose thim cost a lot of money. But, shure, it was the priests give
'em to her."

"Wisha, thin, there's many a poor creature that would want the money
more."

Now, all this was not only sarcastic, but calumnious. The cap and
streamers were Mrs. Darcy's own, bought out of her hard earnings, and
donned to-day to honor the nuptials of her idol and benefactress. She
knew the mighty ordeal that was in store for her; but she faced it, and
thanked God she was "not behoulden to wan of thim for what she put into
her mout' and upon her back." And she stood there at the altar-rails,
erect and defiant, and there was not a tremor in the hand that held the
holy-water vase, nor in the hand that held the aspergill.

But it was very embarrassing to myself. I am not disposed to be nervous,
for I have always conscientiously avoided tea and too much study, and I
have lived in the open air, and always managed to secure eight hours of
dreamless, honest sleep; but I was "discomposed," as some one charitably
explained it that morning; and Mrs. Darcy's cap was the cause. I couldn't
take my eyes away from it. There it was, dancing like a
will-o'-the-wisp before my dazzled vision. I turned my back
deliberately upon it, and lo! there it was in miniature in the convex
arc of my spectacles; and if I looked up, there was my grinning
congregation, and their half-audible remarks upon this dread and
unwonted apparition. At last I commenced:

"Reginald Darcy, wilt thou take Bittra Ormsby here present--"

A forcible reminder from Father Letheby brought me to my senses; but
away they scattered again, as I heard Campion muttering something
uncomplimentary under his black mustache.

"Ahem!--Reginald Ormsby, wilt thou take Mrs. Darcy--"

Here Father Letheby nudged me again, and looked at me suspiciously. I
got a sudden and violent paroxysm of coughing, a remnant of an old
bronchial attack to which I am very subject. But I managed to say:--

"For the love of God, send that woman into the sacristy."

She covered her retreat nobly, made a curtsey to the priests,
genuflected calmly, laid down the aspergill, and, under pretence of
having been sent for something which these careless priests had
forgotten, retired with honors; and then I suppose had a good long cry.
But poor Bittr