“Faix, his reverence give it against Mrs. Foley, too! Anyhow, she was too late; twenty-wan years had passed, and there was no call to go and upset a grand English family, and maybe for nothing. Katty, ye see, had no proof beyond her bare word; no papers, no witnesses. Every one jeered at Mrs. Foley’s queer notion, and treated the story as an elegant fine joke. Mary is no Englisher, and there’s not a lighter foot to dance a jig, or a better warrant to sing an old Irish lament, in all the country.” “And is that the end of it? Eh?” said the lawyer briskly. “’Tis in a way; howsomever, Katty still whinges and whimpers and moans, begging and praying them to make restitution--sometimes beating on the walls with her two bare hands, and crying by the hour; she can’t stir now, having lost the use of herself; and her legs being crippled with rheumatism, she sits in her chair all day. Whiles, she’s reasonable enough; but about Mary she is properly mad. She says she’s no child of hers--and calls her _Lady_ Mary. Ye see the head of Katty is not right, and her own mother went the same way, so people just humours her; they are all very good to the poor crazy creature, she being a sort of ‘innocent’ in her old age.” “I suppose they never imagine there is any foundation for her delusion,” inquired Mr. Usher. “No; and if there was they’d hold Mary Foley hard and fast, and keep her, I believe, against all the lords in England; for she is one of themselves.” “And what do you think yourself?” Mike made no immediate reply, but took one or two loud sucks at his pipe. At last he said: “I believe, on me solemn oath, that there _is_ something in the story all the same.” “You do!” cried Mr. Usher, coming to an abrupt halt, and fixing his sharp eyes on his companion. “In troth I do,” rejoined the old man doggedly. “What grounds have you to go upon for supposing there is something in it?” asked the lawyer. “Faix, it’s no sacret,” he answered, with an air of sullen resolution; “any one would see it that had eyes in their head. John and Katty was as black as two crows. Mary has hair like a copper kettle, a white swan throat, a dancing eye, and a little weenchie hand. Oh, I declare she’s the born image of her ladyship. Now, is not that strange?” and he turned and looked fixedly at his companion’s hard-set, wizened face. “Not if she is her daughter!” “Whisht!” he cried, turning about, as if he feared that the very trees had ears. “Never let _that_ pass yer lips; I only whisper it in my heart, when I go there alone, and sit on the terrace of a Sunday--and to you, a black stranger, it makes no matter what I say; and somehow it’s a relief to give out me thoughts to another creature, whether a gentleman or a man.” “Has this strange likeness struck other people?” inquired Mr. Usher, in his cool, judicial tone.