uent that Mrs. M'Bean was
impelled to say: "You're to keep it, girl alive, if you've e'er a fancy
for it. Sure it's fitter for you than the likes of me, that 'ud look a
quare old scarecrow if I offered to go about in such a thing." She had
not at first intended this generosity, her worldly goods being so few
that she could not lightly part with even a very unpromising possession.

Nelly, on her side, could hardly believe in her high fortune, when,
after some polite demur, she found herself carrying off the splendid
hat. To wear it on an ordinary walk would have seemed profane, so she
held it under her old shawl all the way home to her cabin on the shore
at the foot of the Black Banks, a good step beyond Ballyhoy. But when
she reached the door, she could not forbear the pleasure of making her
entrance in the glory of her new adornment. Her reception was altogether
disappointing. For her mother's and grandmother's voices rose up shrill
and shriller, demanding what at all hijjis gazabo she'd got on her.
Billy, her eldest brother, said: "Musha, she's put a pair of blinkers on
her like an ould horse;" and Larry, his junior, remarked with terse
candour, "Och, the fright." More mortifying still, Joe Tierney, her
sweetheart, who had called to conclude arrangements about the morrow's
holiday, said in a disgusted tone: "Tare and ages! I hope to goodness,
Nelly, you're not intindin' to make that show of yourself at the circus
to-morra. Bedad, I niver seen such a conthrivance; you might as well be
walkin' alongside some sort of deminted musharoon." This rather aptly
described the effect of the huge white brim upon Nelly, who was small
and short of stature; but it hurt her feelings badly.

The only upholder of the hat was Annie Cassidy, who is fond of
controverting the opinions of other people, and who despises men. She
said: "Don't be lettin' them put you out of consait with it, Nelly; it
suits you lovely. Sure if anyone doesn't think your app'arance is good
enough for them, you needn't throuble them wid your company. Circuses,
to my mind, is thrash--to be watchin' folks figurandyin' on a pack of
ould horses' backs. There's a lot of us goin' over to-morra to Rathbeg,
where they've merry-go-rounds you can ride in yourself, and all manner,
if you'd just step down to the Junction station and come along wid us on
the early train."

"'Deed then I might," said Nelly; not that she had the least intention
of doing any such thing, but bec