"Oh! thee can't help bluthing, poor soul! when he thays 'Egan' to her, and thinks her his _furth_ love." "How _vewy_ widiculous to be sure," said Furlong. "Haven't you innothent mad people thumtimes in England?" said Fanny. "Oh _vewy_" said Furlong, "but this appea's to me so wema'kably stwange an abbewation." "Oh," returned Fanny, with quickness, "I thuppose people go mad on their ruling pathion, and the ruling pathion of the Irish, you know, is love." The conversation all this time was going on in other quarters, and Furlong heard Mr. Bermingham talking of his having preached last Sunday in his new church. "Suwely," said he to Fanny, "they would not pe'mit an insane gle'gyman to pweach?" "Oh," said Fanny, almost suffocating with laughter, "he only _thinkth_ he's a clergyman." "How vewy dwoll you are!" said Furlong. "Now you're only quithing me," said Fanny, looking with affected innocence in the face of the unfortunate young gentleman she had been quizzing most unmercifully the whole day. "Oh, Miste' O'Gwady," said Furlong, "we saw them going to dwown a man to-day." "Indeed!" said the Squire, reddening, as he saw Mr. Bermingham stare at his being called O'Grady; so, to cover the blot, and stop Furlong, he asked him to take wine. "Do they often dwown people here?" continued Furlong, after he had bowed. "Not that I know of," said the Squire. "But are not the lowe' o'ders wather given to what Lo'd Bacon calls----" "Who cares about Lord Bacon?" said Murphy. "My dear sir, you supwise me!" said Furlong, in utter amazement. "Lord Bacon's sayings----" "'Pon my conscience," said Murphy, "both himself and his sayings are very _rusty_ by this time." "Oh, I see, Miste' Muffy. You neve' will be sewious." "Heaven forbid!" said Murphy--"at least at dinner, or _after_ dinner. Seriousness is only a morning amusement--it makes a very poor figure in the evening." "By-the-bye," said Mr. Bermingham, "talking of drowning, I heard a very odd story to-day from O'Grady. You and he, I believe," said the clergyman, addressing Egan, "are not on as good terms as you were." At this speech Furlong did _rather_ open his eyes, the Squire hummed and hawed, Murphy coughed, Mrs. Egan looked into her plate, and Dick, making a desperate rush to the rescue, asked Furlong which he preferred, a single or a double barrelled gun. Mr. Bermingham, perceiving the sensation his question created, thought he had touched upon forbidden ground, and therefore did not repeat his question, and Fanny whispered Furlong that one of the stranger's mad peculiarities was mistaking one person for another; but all this did not satisfy Furlong, whose misgivings as to the real name of his host were growing stronger every moment. At last, Mr. Bermingham, without alluding to the broken friendship between Egan and O'Grady, returned to the "odd story" he had heard that morning about drowning.