use that
is a feature in Irish domestic life as wonderful as it is touching,
the staff of Coppinger's Court were resolved that--as they say in
China--the face of Master Larry should not be blackened, and The
Riff-Raff of Cluhir were served with a ceremony and a success that
left nothing to be desired.

Dr. Mangan sat in a very large armchair in front of a big fire of
logs, in the hall, and smoked meditatively, and was seemingly quite
unaware of the couples who moved past him between the dances, passing
out through the open hall-door into the moon-lit May night. He did not
even raise an eyelid when his daughter sailed by him, as she did many
times, with the ostentation of the young lady who is aware that her
prowess is the subject of comment, in company, alternately, with the
two captives of her bow and spear who had offered so feeble a
resistance to those weapons. Tishy and her father alike ascribed her
victory to that redoubtable and already creditably battle-scarred bow
and spear; they neither of them recognised the acknowledgments that
were due to a certain powerful ally, the May moon. She had stolen up
the sky at the back of the woods. The first Larry knew of her was the
vast, incredible, pale disc behind the topmost boughs of the pine
trees, so near that it seemed to him as though the crooked black
branches alone were holding her back, and that her white fire that was
pouring through them must consume them, "and then it will be our
turn," he said, seriously, and without preamble, to Tishy.

"Our turn for what?" asked Tishy, very naturally.

"Our turn to be resolved into moonshine. You'll see me fading away
into silver smoke in a minute," replied Larry. "Let's get out of this,
I'm getting frightened! Hold my hand tight!"

"Go on with your nonsense!" said Tishy. "And will you tell me how can
I hold your hand when it's round my waist?"

Which was reasonable enough, and may be taken as a sufficient
indication of what the moon was already responsible for.

A point of red light moved in the darkness above the seat under the
laurels, to which they were repairing, and the scent of a Virginian
cigarette was wafted to them.

"Who's that?" Tishy whispered, pressing nearer to Larry; but she was
agreeably certain that it was the gloomy and misanthropic Captain
Cloherty, whose place of refuge they had invaded.

Christian, meanwhile, unlike Captain Cloherty, was conscientiously
endeavouring to enjoy herself, and was fin