y choice of the church, or--to starve.'--But I have my
sermon to prepare for to-morrow, and I can sit here no longer. Tell
Ellen to send me in some tea."

I did not think my father was in a very fit state of mind to write a
sermon, but I held my tongue. My sister joined me, and we saw no more of
him till breakfast the next day. Before we met, I received a letter from
O'Brien.

"MY DEAR PETER,--I ran down to Plymouth, hoisted my pennant, drew my
jollies from the dockyard, and set my first lieutenant to work getting
in the ballast and water-tanks. I then set off for Ireland, and was
very well received as Captain O'Brien by my family, who were all
flourishing.

"Now that my two sisters are so well married off, my father and mother
are very comfortable, but rather lonely; for I believe I told you long
before, that it had pleased Heaven to take all the rest of my brothers
and sisters, except the two now married, and one who bore up for a
nunnery, dedicating her service to God, after she was scarred with the
small-pox, and no man would look at her. Ever since the family have
been grown up, my father and mother have been lamenting and sorrowing
that none of them would go off; and now that they're all gone off one
way or another, they cry all day because they are left all alone with
no one to keep company with them, except Father M'Grath and the pigs.
We never are to be contented in this world, that's sartain; and now
that they are comfortable in every respect, they find that they are
very uncomfortable, and having obtained all their wishes, they wish
everything back again; but as old Maddocks used to say, 'A good growl
is better than a bad dinner' with some people; and the greatest
pleasure that they now have is to grumble; and if that makes them
happy, they must be happy all day long--for the devil a bit do they
leave off from morning till night.

"The first thing that I did was to send for Father M'Grath, who had
been more away from home than usual--I presume, not finding things
quite so comfortable as they used to be. He told me that he had met
with Father O'Toole, and had a bit of a dialogue with him, which had
ended in a bit of a row, and that he had cudgelled Father O'Toole
well, and tore his gown off his back, and then tore it into shivers,--
that Father O'Toole had referred the case to the bishop, and that was
how the matter stood just then. 'But,' says