speak, when dread of her husband supervened for the moment, and
she paused like a person in doubt. The peculiar glare and the satanic
smile which her husband gave to Mogue, who, by the way, seemed perfectly
to understand it, oppressed her with an indistinct sense of approaching
evil which she could neither shake off, nor separate from the strange
gentleman to whom their glances evidently referred. She remembered also
to have heard her husband say upon one occasion when he was drunk,
that Mogue Moylan was the deepest villain in the barony--ay, or in the
kingdom; and that only for his cowardice he would be a man after his own
heart. 'Twas true, she knew that he had contradicted all this afterwards
when he got sober, and said it was the liquor that caused him to speak
as he did, that Mogue was a good kind-hearted crature, who loved truth,
and was one of the most religious boys among them.

This, however, did not satisfy her; the impression of some meditated
evil against their temporary guest was too strong to be disregarded, and
on recollecting that Mogue had been up with her husband only the
evening but one before, as if to prepare him for something unusual, the
conviction arose to an alarming height.

We have said that this woman was a poor passive creature, whose life was
a mere round of almost mechanical action. This, to be sure, so far as
regarded her own domestic duties, and in general every matter in which
her husband's opinions and her own could clash, was perfectly true. She
was naturally devoid, however, of neither heart nor intellect, when
any of her fellow-creatures happened to come within the range of her
husband's enmity or vengeance, as well as upon other occasions too, and
it was well known that she had given strong proofs of this. Her life in
general appeared to be one long lull, but, notwithstanding its quietude,
there was, under circumstances of crime or danger, the brooding storm
ready to start up into action.

"Sir," said she, on returning into the house, "I'm a plain and ignorant
woman, so that you needn't feel surprised or alarmed at anything I am
goin' to say. I hope you will pardon me, sir, when I ax if you seen my
husband before, or if you know him either more or less?"

M'Carthy did feel surprised, and replied in the negative to both points
of her question--"I do not know your husband," he said, "nor have I to
my knowledge ever seen him until to-night; may I beg to inquire why you
ask?"

"It