“Man alive, isn’t he a stranger? Ye’ll not deny that. If he’d let me, I’d go back and live in Foley’s Corner, this very blessed hour.” “Would ye now!” he rejoined, with an expression of sovereign contempt. “And all by yerself, too! Bridgie Grogan is going home at wance, wid her pocket well lined. Faix, that was the easily earned money! His lordship also giv’ her all the furniture and stock, you having no call for it. The place is to be shut up, and not a hate left in it. Bridgie says it’s entirely too lonely for her, is Foley’s Corner.” “But suppose I _chose_ to stay on?--then what would ye say?” “That you had a right to be taken out of it, and put in the county lunatic asylum.” “But surely the lease, and the cows and pigs, were coming to me?” “An’ for why? Ye were no relation to Katty whatever, and isn’t Bridgie her own sister?” Mary stared at him in silence. Yes, he was right; the house was Mrs. Grogan’s, and the door of that home was closed to her. She was shut out from her old life in the cottage, and must accept her new quarters in the castle. For the first time since Katty’s death she began to catch a faint glimpse of herself, as “Lady Joseline.” “I expect you’ll have Bridgie coming round to see yer ladyship this evening. She might bring you a few bits of things and your duds. I know she’s aching to get off home.” “Who is going to have the cat?” “The white cat, ye mane? ’Tis no bargain for any one; an ugly blackguard of a thing. I’m thinking the lake will take him, as it has done his betters.” “No, no, Mike, I’ll have him! the poor angashore.” “What’s that yer saying?” “Yes, and give him whatever home I have, as long as he lives.” “Faix, it’s well known he has nine lives! You and the white cat! Well, to be sure. A nice ornament he is to be transported over to England. I’m thinking they’ll get a cruel bad notion of the breed of Irish cats. But maybe he’s dead by now.” “No. And I want you to go up to Biddy Grogan’s and tell her to bring him this evening in a basket, will ye?” “’Tis a quare fancy ye have! But I’ll do yer commands. I wish it was meself yer ladyship was taking along wid her instead of an ould scorched tom-cat, wid a bad character.” “Do not call me yer ladyship!” “Arrah! an’ what else am I to call ye?” “Mary.” “Sure, how can I put such a lie in me mouth as _that_?--yer name being Joseline, and a quare one, too, and it was given ye within there in the drawing-room”--pointing to the apartment which harboured the boat--“and you were christened by the Reverend William Scott, in a great hurry, and out of the General’s old china punch-bowl.” “How do you know all that?”