going to
Aughermore this morning?" at last said Feemy, the first to begin the
disagreeable conversation.

When Thady looked up, thinking what to answer to this plain speech,
his eye, luckily for him, fell on the new Mohill collar.

"Where were you getting that collar, Feemy?"

"And are you afther making me stay at home all the blessed day, and
sending Captain Ussher all the way back to Mohill, and he having
come over here by engagement to walk with me,"--this was a fib of
Feemy's,--"and all to ask me where I got a new collar?"

"May be I was, Feemy, and may be I wasn't; but I suppose there isn't
any harum in my asking the question, or in you answering it?"

"Oh no, not the laist; only it ain't usual in you to be asking such
questions."

"But if there's no harum, I ask it now; where were you getting the
collar?"

"Well, you're very queer; but if you must know, Captain Ussher
brought it with him from Mohill."

"And if you wanted a parcel from Mohill, why couldn't you let Brady
bring it, who is in it constantly, instead of that upstart policeman,
who'd think it more condescension to bring that from Mohill, than I
would to be carrying a sack of potatoes so far."

"There then you're wrong; the policeman, as you're pleased to call
him, thinks no such thing."

"Well, Feemy, but did you bid him bring it, or did he bring it of his
own accord?"

Feemy could now shuffle no longer, so blushing slightly, she said,
"Well, if you must know then, it was a present; and there's no such
great harm in that, I suppose."

Here Thady was again bothered; he really did not know whether there
was any harm in it or not; a week ago he certainly would have thought
not, but he was now inclined to think that there was; but he was not
sure, and he sadly wished for Father John to tell him what to do.

"Well, Thady, now what was it you were wanting of me?"--and then
after a pause, she added, her courage rising as she saw her brother's
falling: "Was it anything about Captain Ussher?"

"Yes, it was."

"Well?"

"Is there anything between you and he, Feemy?"

"What do you mean by between us, Thady?" and Feemy made a little
fruitless attempt to laugh.

"Well then; you're in love with him, ain't you? there now, that's the
long and the short."

"Supposing I was, why shouldn't I?"

"Only this, Feemy, he's not in love with you."

This put Feemy's back up, "'Deed then, it's little you know about it,
for he just is; and I love him too