Fanny O'Dwyer had a great respect for her uncle,
seeing that he filled an exalted position, and was a connexion of
whom she could be justly proud; but, though she had now come down to
Kanturk with the view of having a good talk with her aunt and uncle
about the Molletts, she would only tell as much as she liked to tell,
even to the parish priest of Drumbarrow. And we may as well explain
here that Fanny had now permanently made up her mind to reject the
suit of Mr. Abraham Mollett. As she had allowed herself to see more
and more of the little domestic ways of that gentleman, and to become
intimate with him as a girl should become with the man she intends
to marry, she had gradually learned to think that he hardly came up
to her beau ideal of a lover. That he was crafty and false did not
perhaps offend her as it should have done. Dear Fanny, excellent and
gracious as she was, could herself be crafty on occasions. He drank
too, but that came in the way of her profession. It is hard, perhaps,
for a barmaid to feel much severity against that offence. But in
addition to this Aby was selfish and cruel and insolent, and seldom
altogether good tempered. He was bad to his father, and bad to those
below him whom he employed. Old Mollett would give away his sixpences
with a fairly liberal hand, unless when he was exasperated by drink
and fatigue. But Aby seldom gave away a penny. Fanny had sharp eyes,
and soon felt that her English lover was not a man to be loved,
though he had two rings, a gold chain, and half a dozen fine
waistcoats.

And then another offence had come to light in which the Molletts were
both concerned. Since their arrival in South Main Street they had
been excellent customers--indeed quite a godsend, in this light, to
Fanny, who had her own peculiar profit out of such house-customers
as they were. They had paid their money like true Britons,--not
regularly indeed, for regularity had not been desired, but by a five
pound now, and another in a day or two, just as they were wanted.
Nothing indeed could be better than this, for bills so paid are
seldom rigidly scrutinized. But of late, within the last week,
Fanny's requests for funds had not been so promptly met, and only on
the day before her visit to Kanturk she had been forced to get her
father to take a bill from Mr. Mollett senior for L20 at two months'
date. This was a great come-down, as both Fanny and her father felt,
and they had begun to think that it mig