tisfied. What he had
heard, brief and broken as it was, but served to excite his suspicions,
and make him regard this guest as at least a very doubtful character.
Too shrewd a diplomatist to push his inquiries any further, he adroitly
turned the conversation upon matters of comparative indifference,
reserving to himself the part of acutely watching Talbot's manner,
and narrowly scrutinizing the extent of his acquaintance with Mark
O'Donoghue. In whatever school Talbot had been taught, his skill was
more than a match for Sir Archy's. Not only did he at once detect the
meaning of the old man's policy; but he contrived to make it subservient
to his own views, by the opportunity it afforded him of estimating the
influence he was capable of exerting over his nephew; and how far, if
need were, Mark should become dependent on his will, rather than on
that of any member of his own family. The frankness of his manner, the
seeming openness of his nature, rendered his task a matter of apparent
amusement; and none at the table looked in every respect more at ease
than Harry Talbot.

While Sir Archy was thus endeavouring, with such skill as he possessed,
to worm out the secret reason--and such, he well knew, there must
be--of Talbot's visit to that unfrequented region, Kerry O'Leary was
speculating, with all his imaginative ability, how best to account
for that event. The occasion was one of more than ordinary difficulty.
Talbot looked neither like a bailiff nor a sheriffs officer; neither had
he outward signs of a lawyer or an attorney. Kerry was conversant with
the traits of each of these. If he were a suitor for Miss Kate, his last
guess, he was a day too late.

"But sure he couldn't be that: he'd never come with a throop of noisy
vagabonds, in the dead of the night, av he was after the young lady.
Well, well, he bates me out--sorra lie in it," said he, drawing a heavy
sigh, and crossing his hands before him in sad resignation.

"On _my_ conscience, then, it was a charity to cut your hair for you,
anyhow!" said Mrs. Branagan, who had been calmly meditating on the
pistol-shot, which, in grazing Kerry's hair, had somewhat damaged his
locks.

"See, then--by the holy mass! av he went half an inch lower, it's my
life he'd be after taking; and if he was fifty O'Donoghues, I'd have my
vingince. Bad cess to me, but they think the likes of me isn't fit to
live at all."

"They do," responded Mrs. Branagan, with a mild puff of smoke f