came here this
morning on my way to Dublin, and thought I would just ask a few
questions about some people I knew a little about. Miss O'Kelly----"

'"Ah, dear! Poor Miss Judy--she's gone these two or three years."

'"Ay, these fifteen," interposed Ned.

'"No, it isn't though," said the captain crossly, "it isn't more than
three at most--cut off in her prime too. She was the last of an old
stock--I knew them all well. There was Dick--blazing Dick O'Kelly, as
they called him--that threw the sheriff into the mill-race at Kilmacud,
and had to go to France afterwards; and there was Peter--Peter got the
property, but he was shot in a duel. Peter had a son--a nice devil he
was too; he was drowned at sea; and except the little girl that has the
school up there, Sally O'Kelly--she is one of them--there's none to the
fore."

'"And who was she, sir?"

'"Sally was--what's this? Ay, Sally is daughter to a son Dick left in
France. He died in the war in Germany, and left this creature; and Miss
Judy heard of her, and got her over here, just the week she departed
herself. She's the last of them now--the best family in Kerry--and
keeping a child's school! Ay, ay, so it is; and there's property too
coming to her, if they could only prove that chap's death, Con O'Kelly.
But sure no one knows anything where it happened. Sam Fitzsimon
advertised him in all the papers, but to no use."

'I did not wait for more of the old captain's reminiscences, but
snatching up my hat I hurried down the street, and in less than an hour
was closeted with Mr. Samuel Fitzsimon, attorney-at-law, and gravely
discussing the steps necessary to be taken for the assumption of my
right to a small property, the remains of my Aunt Judy's--a few hundred
pounds, renewal fines of lands, that had dropped since my father's
death. My next visit was to the little school, which was held in the
parlour where poor Aunt Judy used to have her little card parties. The
old stuffed macaw--now from dirt and smoke he might have passed for a
raven--was still over the fireplace, and there was the old miniature of
my father, and on the other side was one which I had not seen before,
of Father Donnellan in full robes. All the little old conchologies were
there too; and except the black plethoric-looking cat that sat staring
fixedly at the fire as if she was grieving over the price of coals, I
missed nothing. Miss Sally was a nice modest-looking woman, with an
air of better class ab