"Well, he was decent enough--that is, as far as absolute behaviour went. You can't have a silk purse from off a sow's ear, you know." "No, indeed; and goodness knows there's plenty of the sow's ear about him. But now, Æneas, dear, do tell me how it all was, just from the beginning." "He was there before me," said the husband. "Catch a weasel asleep!" said the wife. "I didn't catch him asleep at any rate," continued he. "He was there before me; but when I went into the little room where they hold the meeting--" "It's at Berryhill, isn't it?" "Yes, at the Widow Casey's. To see that woman bowing and scraping and curtsying to Father Barney, and she his own mother's brother's daughter, was the best thing in the world." "That was just to do him honour before the quality, you know." "Exactly. When I went in, there was nobody there but his reverence and Master Herbert." "As thick as possible, I suppose. Dear, dear; isn't it dreadful!--Did I put sugar enough in it, Æneas?" "Well, I don't know; perhaps you may give me another small lump. At any rate, you didn't forget the whisky." "I'm sure it isn't a taste too strong--and after such work as you've had to-day.--And so young Fitzgerald and Father Barney--" "Yes, there they were with their heads together. It was something about a mill they were saying." "Oh, it's perfectly dreadful!" "But Herbert stopped, and introduced me at once to Father Barney." "What! a regular introduction? I like that, indeed." "He didn't do it altogether badly. He said something about being glad to see two gentlemen together--" "A gentleman, indeed!" "--who were both so anxious to do the best they could in the parish, and whose influence was so great--or something to that effect. And then we shook hands." "You did shake hands?" "Oh, yes; if I went there at all, it was necessary that I should do that." "I am very glad it was not me, that's all. I don't think I could shake hands with Father Barney." "There's no knowing what you can do, my dear, till you try." "H--m," said Mrs. Townsend, meaning to signify thereby that she was still strong in the strength of her own impossibilities. "And then there was a little general conversation about the potato, for no one came in for a quarter of an hour or so. The priest said that they were as badly off in Limerick and Clare as we are here. Now, I don't believe that; and when I asked him how he knew, he quoted the 'Freeman.'" "The 'Freeman,' indeed! Just like him. I wonder it wasn't the 'Nation.'" In Mrs. Townsend's estimation, the parish priest was much to blame because he did not draw his public information from some newspaper specially addicted to the support of the Protestant cause. "And then Somers came in, and he took the chair. I was very much afraid at one time that Father Barney was going to seat himself there." "You couldn't possibly have stood that?"