ir names until the
day after the next, and told him if he could understand their reason for
this request, he would not hesitate to comply with it.

O'Brien, who suspected the true cause of their reluctance, did not on
this occasion press them further, but consented to their wishes, and
promised, not to mention their names, even as indirectly connected with
the outrage, until the time they had specified had elapsed.

In the course of the following day Nogher M'Cormick presented himself to
the Bodagh and his son, neither of whom felt much difficulty in divining
the cause of his visit.

"Well," said Nogher, after the first usual civilities had passed,
"glory be to God, gintlemen, this is desperate fine weather for the
season--barrin' the wet"

John smiled, but the plain matter-of-fact Bodagh replied,

"Why, how the devil can you call this good weather, neighbor, when it's
raining for the last week, night and day?"

"I do call it good weather for all that," returned Nogher, "for you
ought to know that every weather's good that God sends."

"Well," said the Bodagh, taken aback a little by the Nogher's piety,
"there's truth in that, too, neighbor."

"I am right," said Nogher, "an' it's nothin' else than a sinful world to
say that this is bad weather, or that's bad weather--bekase the Scriptur
says, 'wo be to thee----'"

"But, pray," interrupted John, "what's your business with my father and
me?"

Nogher rubbed down his chin very gravely and significantly,

"Why," said he, "somethin' for your own good, gentlemen."

"Well, what is that?" said John, anxious to bring him to the point as
soon as possible.

"The truth, gentlemen, is this--I'm an ould man, an' I hope that I never
was found to be anything else than an honest one. They're far away this
day that could give me a good carrechtur--two o' them anyhow I'll never
forget--Connor an' his mother; but I'll never see them agin; an' the
ould man too, I never could hate him, in regard of the love he bore
his son. Long, long was the journey he tuck to see that son, an', as he
tould me the day he whint into the ship, to die in his boy's arms; for
he said heaven wouldn't be heaven to him, if he died anywhere else."

Nogher's eyes filled as he spoke, and we need scarcely say that neither
the Bodagh nor his son esteemed him the less for his attachment to
Connor O'Donovan and his family.

"The sooner I end the business I come about to-day," said he, "the
better. You wa