nerally
supposed, that even when not winning his race, Tony McKeon seldom
lost much by attending the meeting. There was now going to be a
steeple-chase at Carrick-on-Shannon in a few days, and McKeon was
much intent on bringing his mare, Playful,--a wicked devil, within
twenty yards of whom no one but himself and groom could come,--into
the field in fine order and condition. In addition to this, Mr.
McKeon was a very hospitable man, his only failing in that respect
being his firm determination and usual practice to make every
man that dined with him drunk. He was honest in everything,
barring horse-flesh; was a good Catholic, and very fond of his
daughters--Louey and Lydia. His wife was a kind, good, easy creature,
fond of the world and the world's goods, and yet not selfish or
niggardly with those with which she was blessed. She was sufficiently
contented with her husband, whose friends never came out of the
dining-room after dinner, and therefore did not annoy her; she looked
on his foibles with a lenient eye, for she had been accustomed to
such all her life; and when she heard he had parted with her car in
a handicap, or had lost her two fat pigs in a knock, she bore it
with great good-humour. She was always willing to procure amusement
for her daughters, and was beginning to feel anxious to get them
husbands; she was a good neighbour, and if she had a strong feeling
at all, it was her partiality for Father John. Her daughters
had nothing very remarkable about them to recommend them to our
attention: they were both rather pretty, tolerably well educated,
to the extent of a two years' sojourn in a convent in Sligo; were
both very fond of novels, dancing, ribbons and potato cakes; and
both thought that to dance at a race-ball with an officer in his
regimentals was the most supreme terrestrial blessing of which their
lot was susceptible.

We have, however, kept the father too long standing at his own door,
while we have been describing his family.

"Well, Father John," said McKeon, "how are you this morning?"

"Why then, as luckily I didn't dine with you, Mr. McKeon, I'm pretty
much as I usually am,--and, thank God, that's well. I'm told you had
those poor fellows that were with you last night, laid on a mattress,
and that you sent them home that way to Carrick on a country car, and
that they couldn't move, leaving this at six this morning."

"Oh, nonsense, Father John! who was telling you them lies?"

"But wasn'