, puzzled by this startling
relationship.

"She's that girl of the Cantys', ma'am, and as likely a colleen as ever
ye met, though I say it as shouldn't, she being kin-like," says Mrs.
Reilly, boldly, seeing her time is come.

"What! that pretty, blue-eyed child that called to see you yesterday?
She _is_ from the village, then?" with manifest distaste.

"An' what's the matther wid the village, ma'am?" By this time Mrs.
Reilly has her arms akimbo, and has an evident thirst for knowledge full
upon her.

"But I fear she is flighty and wild, and not at all domesticated in any
way."

"An' who has the face to say that, ma'am? Give me the names of her
dethractors," says Mrs. Reilly, in an awful tone, that seemed to demand
the blood of the "dethractors."

"I feel sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not
aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs.
Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of,
I hear she is, as I say, very flighty."

"Don't believe a word of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous
indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a
ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating
the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little
sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the
county. The Cantys has all a character for purty feet."

"Pretty feet are all very well in their way," says Miss Priscilla,
nodding her head. "But can she sew? and is she quiet and tractable,
and----"

"Divil a thing she can't do, ma'am, axin' yer pardon," says Mrs. Reilly,
rather losing herself in the excitement of the moment. "Just thry her,
ma'am, an' if ye don't like her, an' if Miss Monica finds even one fault
in her, just send her back to her mother. I can't say fairer nor that."

"No, indeed. Very well, Reilly, let her come up to me to-morrow; and see
that her inside clothes are all right, and let her know she must _never_
be out after dark."

"Yes, ma'am," says the triumphant Reilly, beating a hasty retreat.

Half an hour afterwards she encounters Monica upon the avenue.

"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Reilly?" asks Monica, seeing that cook
is got up in all her war-paint, regardless of expense.

"To mass first, miss," says Mrs. Reilly.

"Where's that?" asks Monica, with foreign ignorance.

"Law! to the chapel, miss," says Reilly, with an amused smile.

"But it is