is the grandest and the natest letther ever seen, and the
ilegant picthur on the back! Musha, musha, 'tis not the likes o' that
comes to Biddy Joyce ivery day, no, nor to no one else neither in these
parts! It minds me of a letther her ladyship at the castle aksed me to
take to the posht, and her in a hurry; begob, but the paper's thick and
good entoirely!" and he rubbed it softly between his finger and thumb.
"Shure 'tis from London itself, and maybe the one as wrote it is some
friend o' Eily's. Ah, but it's she is the foolish one that she did not
take the boy! it's long ere she'll find another such a match again, and
him with cattle and sheep and pigs o' his own, a house that many a girl
would be wild for to get, and maybe--maybe--a bit laid by for a rainy
day into the bargain!"

[Sidenote: "Too Good for Her!"]

The jennet jogged slowly on as Patrick soliloquised. "The poor lad, but
it makes me heart ache to see him so low-like, setting so quiet in the
house, and him thinking, thinking all the blessed while, and never a
word out o' his mouth to complain. He's a rale good lad, and it's sorry
I am that he should take on so bad, and all for the sake o' a pair o'
bright eyes! To see him when Biddy Joyce was sick and Mike got laid up
with rheumatics; who was it minded the cattle, and fed the pigs, and sat
early and late 'tending on the pair o' thim but Dermot! It's mighty high
the girl is, with her talk o' the gintry and the ilegant places she seen
in London, and never a mintion o' his name in all her letthers, the
foolish craythur! it's too good the bhoy is for the likes o' her!" The
old man was beginning to wax indignant over his son's unfavoured suit
when a voice, rich and strong, called to him across the loose stone wall
that divided the road from the fields.

"Any news going down Lissough way, father?" It was Dermot, who had
stopped for a moment in his task of cutting down the long grass.

"Arrah, phwat news is it likely an old man like me should bring? You ask
me so eager-like that I misdoubt me but it's some colleen that's caught
your eye!" Patrick's eyes twinkled merrily as he made his little joke.
Dermot's face saddened, and he turned to his scythe once more.

His father, sorry that he had brought back the cloud once more to his
son's face, pulled the letter from his pocket and laid it on the wall.

"Now, there's for yez! as lovely a letther as ever you seen, all the way
from London, with a little picthur of