ces the two brothers and Ussher were sitting
over a very late breakfast at Brown Hall. The father had long since
been out; careful to see that he got the full twelve hours' work from
the unfortunate men whom he hired at five pence a day, and who had
out of that to feed themselves and families, and pay their rent; we
will not talk about clothing them, it would be a mockery to call the
rags with which the labouring poor in that part of the country are
partially covered, clothes, or to attach value to them, though I
suppose they must once have cost something.

"Why, what nonsense, Ussher," said Fred, "to be sending that mare
of yours down to Munster; she'd never be fast enough for that
country--not the thing at all for Tipperary fences--all gaps and
breaks; besides the expense of sending her, and the chances that
she's lamed on the road. You'd better let me have her; she's only fit
for this country. I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll give you the horse
and gig you're to take that girl of yours to Longford in to-morrow
for her."

"Hush, man, for G----d's sake! If the servants hear you talking that
way, I'm dished. If it once got abroad about my taking her off, I'd
have the devil to pay before I got out of the country."

"I believe Ussher thinks," said George, "no one ran away with a girl
before himself. Why if you were going to seize a dozen stills, you
couldn't make more row about it."

"I shouldn't make any about that, for it would come natural to me;
and I'd a deal sooner be doing that, than what I have to do to-morrow
night. I'm d----d, but I'd sooner take a score of frieze-coats, with
only five or six of my own men to back me, than drive twenty miles in
a gig with a squalling girl."

"If you're sick of the job, I'll take her off your hands," said the
good-natured Fred.

"Thank ye, no; as I've got so far with it, I believe I'll go on now."

"Well, if you won't take a kind offer about the girl, will you take
the one I made about the mare? To tell the truth, I'd sooner have the
mare than the girl myself."

"Thank ye, no; I believe I'll keep both."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Fred, getting anxious in
his hankering after the mare, "I'll throw the harness into the
bargain--spick and span new from Hamilton's. I paid eight pound ten
for it not a month since. All the new fashion--brass fittings and
brass haines. You could have the crests taken out, and new ones put
in, for a few shillings; only send me down th