ir presence to be
particular about their excuses, but my father's contempt of their
subterfuges was naked and undisguised, and I hardly know whether to feel
amused or ashamed when I think of how he scored off them, how he lashed
them to the bone, with what irony and sarcasm he scorched their
time-serving little souls.

When they were very great folks, the "aristocracy" of Ellan, he
pretended not to know who they were, and asked their names, their
father's names, and what parishes they came from.

"Some of the Christians of Balla-Christian, are you? Think of that now.
And me a born Ellanman, and not knowing you from Adam!"

When they were very near neighbours, with lands that made boundary with
our own, he pretended to think they had been twenty years abroad, or
perhaps sick, or even dead and buried.

"Too bad, ma'am, too bad," he would say. "And me thinking you were under
the sod through all the lonely years my poor wife was ill and dying."

But when they were insular officials, who "walked on the stars," and
sometimes snubbed him in public, the rapier of ridicule was too light
for his heavy hand, and he took up the sledge-hammer, telling them he
was the same man to-day as yesterday, and only his circumstances were
different--his daughter being about to become the lady of the first
house in the island, and none of them being big enough to be left out of
it.

After such scenes Aunt Bridget, for all her despotism within her own
doors, used to tremble with dread of our neighbours taking lasting
offence, but my father would say:

"Chut, woman, they'll come again, and make no more faces about it."

They did, and if they were shy of my father they were gracious enough
to me, saying it was such a good thing for society in the island that
Castle Raa was to have a lady, a real lady, at the head of it at last.

Then came their wedding presents--pictures, books, silver ornaments,
gold ornaments, clocks, watches, chains, jewellery, until my bedroom was
blocked up with them. As each fresh parcel arrived there would be a rush
of all the female members of our household to open it, after which Betsy
Beauty would say:

"What a lucky girl you are!"

I began to think I was. I found it impossible to remain unaffected by
the whirlwind of joyous turmoil in which I lived. The refulgence of the
present hour wiped out the past, which seemed to fade away altogether.
After the first few days I was flying about from place to place, an