after that, to think very much of sleeping together."

"But you seem to forget--very likely Mr. McKeon wouldn't like my
asking her; you know I couldn't think of doing it without asking
him."

"Oh! Mrs. McKeon, that's a good joke! You'll make me believe, won't
you, that you're not as much mistress of your own house as any woman
in Ireland? As if Mr. McKeon would interfere with your asking any one
you pleased to your own house."

"But you see the girls are against it."

"I hope they are not against anything that would be charitable and
kind in their mother; but if they were, I'm quite sure their mother
shouldn't give way to them. Wouldn't you be glad to have Miss Feemy
here a short time, Miss Lyddy?"

"Indeed, I'd have no objection, if mamma pleases, Father John."

"There, you see, Mrs. McKeon;--I am afraid I said something rude
which set Miss Louey's back up, but I am sure in her heart she'd
be glad of anything that would be of service to Feemy. Come, Mrs.
McKeon, will you drive over to Ballycloran this fine morning, and ask
her?"

"But suppose she won't come?"

"Then it won't be your fault;--you can tell her it's just for the
races and the ball you're asking her--that she may see Mr. McKeon's
horse win the race, and dance with Ussher at the ball afterwards.
Oh! if you mean her to come, she'll come fast enough;--let you alone
for carrying your point when you're in earnest. I know your way of
asking, when you don't mean to take a refusal;--and to give you your
due this day, I never heard you give an invitation you didn't mean to
be accepted."

"Well, Father John, as you think it will be of so much service to
Feemy, and as, as you say, she has no mother, poor girl, of her own,
and no female friend that she can look to, I'll ask her over here.
But it mustn't be for a week or a fortnight, but till the affair of
Captain Ussher is finally settled. And if the girl behaves herself as
she ought, when once she is here, Tony won't see her wronged by any
man."

"That's my own friend!" said Father John with tears in his eyes.
"What could any poor priest like me do in a parish, if it wasn't that
there were such women as yourself to help him?"

"But, Father John--whisper here," and she took him aside into the
window, and spoke in a low voice; "you can't have helped hearing the
stories people have been talking about Feemy. As I have heard them,
of course you must."

"Heard them! of course I have--but you know what lies