Dunroe will make the cream of a bad husband to
whatsoever poor woman will suffer by him. A bad bargain he will be at
best, and in that I agree with you."

"So far, then," replied the grazier, "we do agree; an', dang my buttons,
but I'll lave it to this gentleman if it wouldn't be betther for Miss
Gourlay to marry a daicent button-maker any day, than such a hurler as
Dunroe. What do you say, sir?"

"But who is this button-maker," asked the stranger, "and where is he to
be found?"

Lucy, on recognizing his voice, could scarcely prevent her emotion from
becoming perceptible; but owing to the darkness of the night, and the
folds of her thick veil, her fellow-travellers observed nothing.

"Why," replied the grazier, who had evidently, from a lapse of memory,
substituted one species of manufacture for another thing, "they tell me
he is stopping in the head inn in Ballytrain; an', dang my buttons, but
he must be a fellow of mettle, for sure didn't he kick that tyrannical
ould scoundrel, the Black Baronet, down-stairs, and out of the
hall-door, when he came to bullyrag over him about his daughter--the
darlin'?"

Lucy's distress was here incredible; and had not her self-command
and firmness of character been indeed unusual, she would have felt it
extremely difficult to keep her agitation within due bounds.

"You labor under a mistake there," replied the stranger; "I happen to
know that nothing of the kind occurred. Some warm words passed between
them, but no blows. A young person named Fenton, whom I know, was
present."

"Why," observed the grazier, "that's the young fellow that goes mad
betimes, an' a quare chap he is, by all accounts. They say he went mad
for love."

From this it was evident that rumor had, as usual, assigned several
causes for Fenton's insanity.

"Yes, I believe so," replied the stranger.

Alley, who thought she had been overlooked in this partial dialogue,
determined to sustain her part in the conversation with a dignity
becoming her situation, now resolved to flourish in with something like
effect.

"They know nothing about it," she said, "that calls Miss Gourlay's
sweetheart a button-maker. Miss Gourlay's not the stuff to fall in love
wid any button-maker, even if he made buttons of goold; an' sure they
say that the king an' queen, and the whole royal family wears golden
buttons."

"I think, in spaiking of buttons," observed the grazier, with a grin,
"that you might lave the queen out."