re he knew that at that hour he should
probably find the mother and daughters surrounded by their household
cares.

When the usual greetings were over, and the two girls had asked all
the particulars of Mary Brady's wedding, and Mrs. McKeon had got
through her usual gossip, Father John warily began the subject
respecting which he was so anxious to rouse his friend's soft
sympathies.

Mrs. McKeon had gone so far herself as to ask him whether anything
had been settled yet at Ballycloran, about Ussher, and whether he
thought that the young man really intended to marry the girl.

The way this question was asked, was a great damper to Father John's
hopes. If there had been any kindly feelings towards poor Feemy at
the moment in her breast, she would have called her by her name,
and not spoken of her as "the girl;" it showed that Mrs. McKeon was
losing, or had lost, whatever good opinion she might ever have had of
Feemy: and when Louey ill-naturedly added, "Oh laws!--not he--the man
never thought of her," Father John felt sure that there was a slight
feeling of triumph among the female McKeons at the idea of Feemy's
losing the lover of whom, perhaps, she had been somewhat too proud.

Still, however, he did not despair; he knew that if they spoke with
ill-nature, it arose from thoughtlessness--and that it was, at any
rate with the mother, only necessary to point out to her the benefit
she could confer, to arouse a kindly feeling within her.

"I think you're wrong there, Miss Louey," said Father John; "I think
he not only did think of her--but does think of her; and I'll tell
you what I know, that if Feemy Macdermot had the great blessing which
you have, and that is a kind, good, careful mother to the fore, she'd
have been married to him before this."

"But, Father John," said the kind, good, careful mother, "what is
there to prevent them marrying, if he's ready? I always pitied Feemy
being left alone there with her father and brother; but if Captain
Ussher is in earnest, I don't see how twenty mothers would make it a
bit easier for her."

"Don't you, Mrs. McKeon!--then it's little you know the advantage
your own girls have in yourself. Don't you think a man would prefer
taking a girl from a house where a good mother gave signs that the
daughter would make a good wife, than from one where there was no one
to mind her but a silly old man, and a young one like Thady?--a very
good young man in his way, but not very fit, M