of a Saturday to market--and if you leave the token--"

"There's no use in it--sorra bit," said he, despondingly.

"You know your own saycrets best," said Mary, foiled at every effort;
"and they must be the dhroll saycrets too, when you're so much afraid of
their being found out."

"Troth then," said Lanty, as a ray of his old gallantry shot across his
mind; "troth then, there isn't one I'd tell a saycrct too as soon as
yourself, Mary M'Kelly; you know the most of my heart already, and Why
wouldn't you know it all?"

"Faix it's little I care to hear about it," said Mary, with an
affectation of indifference, the most finished coquetry could not have
surpassed. "Ye may tell it, or no, just as ye plaze."

"That's it now," cried Lanty--"that's the way of women, the whole world
over; keep never minding them, and bad luck to peace or case you get;
and then try and plaze them, and see what thanks you have. I was going
to tell you all about it."

"And why don't you?" interrupted she, half fearing lest she might have
pulled the cord over-tight already; "why don't you tell it, Lanty
dear?"

These last words settled the matter. Like the feather that broke the
camel's back, these few and slight syllables were all that was wanting
to overcome the horse-dealer's resistance.

"Well, here it is now," said he, casting, as he spoke, a cautious glance
around, lest any chance listener should overhear him. "There was in that
pocket-book, a letter, sealed with three big seals, that Father Luke
gave me yesterday morning, and said to me, 'Lanty Lawler, I'm going over
to Ballyvourney, and after that, I'm going on to Cork, and it's mighty
likely I'll go as far as Dublin, for the Bishop may be there, and if
he is, I must follow him; and here's a letter,' says he, 'that you must
give the O'Donoghue with your own hands'--them was the words--'with your
own hands, Lanty; and now swear you'll not leave it to any one else, but
do as I tell you;' and, faix, I took my oath of it, and see, now, it's
lost; may I never, but I don't know how I'll ever face him again; and
sure God knows what was in it." "And there was three seals on it," said
Mary, musingly, as if such extraordinary measures of secrecy could bode
nothing good.

"Each of them as big as a half-crown--and it was thick inside too; musha
'twas the evil day I ever set eyes on it!" and with this allusion to the
lost money, which, by an adroitness of superstition, he coupled with the
bad l