nd it
to-morrow?"

Kitty graciously agreed to wait till the next day. I hardly expected
that she would.

"By the way, Kitty," I said, "if I'd won, and I very nearly did, would
Miss Lane have paid me?"

"Of course not. Why should she? You haven't got a society for showing
kindness to the poor. There'd be no sense in giving you money."

The gardener to whom I was talking next morning, gave it to me as his
opinion that "Miss Kitty is a wonderful young lady," I agreed with him
and am glad that she is my niece, not my daughter.

XIV. A ROYAL MARRIAGE

Michael Kane carried His Majesty's mails from Clonmethan to the Island
of Inishrua. He made the voyage twice a week in a big red boat fitted
with a motor engine. He had as his partner a young man called Peter
Gahan. Michael Kane was a fisherman, and had a knowledge of the ways of
the strange tides which race and whirl in the channel between Inishrua
and the mainland. Peter Gahan looked like an engineer. He knew something
about the tides, but what he really understood was the motor engine. He
was a grave and silent young man who read small books about Socialism.
Michael Kane was grey-haired, much battered by the weather and rich in
experience of life. He was garrulous and took a humorous view of most
things, even of Peter Gahan's Socialism.

There are, perhaps, two hundred people living on Inishrua, but they do
not receive many letters. Nor do they write many. Most of them neither
write nor receive any letters at all. A post twice a week is quite
sufficient for their needs, and Michael Kane is not very well paid for
carrying the lean letter bag. But he makes a little money by taking
parcels across to the island. The people of Inishrua grow, catch or
shoot most of the things they want; but they cannot produce their own
tea, tobacco, sugar or flour. Michael Kane takes orders for these and
other things from Mary Nally, who keeps a shop on Inishrua. He buys
them in Clonmethan and conveys them to the island. In this way he earns
something. He also carries passengers and makes a little out of them.

Last summer, because it was stormy and wet, was a very lean season for
Michael Kane. Week after week he made his journeys to Inishrua without a
single passenger. Towards the middle of August he began to give up hope
altogether.

He and Peter sat together one morning on the end of the pier. The red
post boat hung at her moorings outside the little harbour. The day
was wind