of Larry at her elbow, than of that foxy devil back at
Riverstown" (which was the present scene of Captain Cloherty's
professional labours). "And what's more, if Tishy will only give her
mind to it, it'll take a stiffer lad than Master Larry to be man
enough for her! She downed him once, and she'll do it again, in spite
of Christian Lowry!"

Even as the Big Doctor thought, there were many more that fought for
him in this matter than against him. Potent had been his suggestion to
his daughter that there wasn't a girl in Cluhir that wouldn't "be
gibeing at her" if she lost so golden an opportunity, nor one that
would believe she had not half hanged herself to secure it. (And
though it has not been possible to include them in this chronicle, it
may be accepted that there were many girls in Cluhir of the lively
malevolence of whose gibes Tishy was entirely sensible.) Even more
potent was the pull of Larry's position, the _prestige_ of his
money, of his "place," of his good looks; most potent of all, the fact
of his nearness, the mere primary fact that he was a young man, in
whose company she was daily thrown, whose unattached status (the
Doctor had kept his own counsel as to that interview with Christian,
and his deductions therefrom) was a continual challenge to her charms,
whose mere presence was an excitement an a stimulus.

As the polling day approached, and effort became more strenuous, Larry
fell ever more gratefully into the habit of No. 6, The Mall. Of coming
in, in the gloom of the wet afternoon, and finding Tishy mending her
gloves, or stitching something all lace and ribbons, something that
would obviously blossom into a "Sunday blouse," but that, with flash
of her grey eyes, she would tell him was "poor-clothes,' that the Nuns
had asked her to make. Of sitting on the big sofa beside her, and
teasing her about Captain Cloherty and the adventure in which Tinker
took a leading part.

"If you go telling tales to the Doctor, you'll be sorry!"

"How can you make me sorry?"

"Wait awhile and you'll find out! There are plenty ways to teach
little boys manners! Oh, look now what you've done! You've made me
pull the thread out o' me needle. Thread it now, you!"

Then Larry, with his quick eye and steady hand, would annoy her by
threading it as deftly as she herself could have done, would possibly
contribute some enormous stitches to the confection, and, by the time
its construction was seriously resumed, the collab