urf."

While Pat was settling with the post-boy, my grandmother conducted my
mother and me into the parlour. The more elegant portions of furniture,
if they ever existed, had disappeared, and a table, with a number of
wooden-bottomed chairs and a huge ill-stuffed sofa, were all that
remained. A picture of my grandfather in a hunting-suit, and a few
wretched daubs, part of them of sporting scenes and part of saints,
adorned the walls. Such was the appearance of the chief room in
Rincurran Castle. My aunts were not at home, two of them having ridden
to market, and the others being on a visit to some neighbours. At
length two of them came riding up on rough, ungroomed ponies, with
baskets on their arms. Having taken off the saddles, they sent their
animals to find their way by themselves into the open stable, while they
entered the house to greet my mother. They were not ill-looking women,
with rather large features, and fine eyes, but as unlike my mother as
could well be. So also were my other two aunts, who shortly after came
in. They all, however, gave their sister Mary a hearty welcome, and,
with better tact than might have been expected, made no inquiries about
her husband, her dress showing them that he was gone. I found that she
had been brought up by a sister of her mother's--a good Protestant
woman, residing near Cork, where my father had met her. My grandfather
was a Romanist, though my grandmother still remained as she had
originally been, a Protestant. The rest of her daughters attended the
Romish chapel. My mother had not been at home since she was quite a
girl, and I soon found had entirely forgotten her family's way of
living, and their general habits and customs. She therefore very soon
began to regret that she had not accepted Lieutenant Schank's invitation
to visit his family. Pat Brady made himself very agreeable to his
cousins, and had such wonderful stories to tell them that he was a great
favourite. I had plenty to amuse me; but there seemed very little
probability of my getting the education which Captain Oliver had
recommended. The castle also was not over well provisioned, potatoes
and buttermilk forming the staple of our meals, with an over-abundance
of pork whenever a pig was killed; but as it was necessary to sell the
better portions of each animal to increase the family income, the supply
was only of an intermittent character. My grandfather made up for the
deficiency by copio