The widow was in her glory; hospitable, she enjoyed receiving her friends,--mirthful, she looked forward to a long night of downright sport,--coquettish, she would have good opportunity of letting Tom Durfy see how attractive she was to the men,--while from the women her love of gossip and scandal (was there ever a lady in her position without it?) would have ample gratification in the accumulated news of the county of twenty miles round. She had but one _large_ room at her command, and _that_ was given up to the dancing; and being cleared of tables, chairs, and carpet, could not be considered by Mrs. Flanagan as a proper reception-room for her guests, who were, therefore, received in a smaller apartment, where tea and coffee, toast and muffins, ladies and gentlemen, were all smoking-hot together, and the candles on the mantel-piece trickling down rivulets of fat in the most sympathetic manner, under the influence of the gentle sighing of a broken pane of glass, which the head of an inquiring youth in the street had stove in, while flattening his nose against it in the hope of getting a glimpse of the company through the opening in the window-curtain. At last, when the room could hold no more, the company were drafted off to the dancing-room, which had only long deal forms placed against the wall to rest the weary after the exertions of the jig. The aforesaid forms, by-the-bye, were borrowed from the chapel; the old wigsby who had the care of them for some time doubted the propriety of the sacred property being put to such a profane use, until the widow's arguments convinced him it was quite right, after she had given him a tenpenny-piece. As the dancing-room could not boast of a lustre, the deficiency was supplied by tin sconces hung against the wall; for ormulu branches are not expected to be plenty in the provinces. But let the widow be heard for herself, as she bustled through her guests and caught a critical glance at her arrangements: "What's that you're faulting now?--is it my deal seats without cushions? Ah! you're a _lazy Larry_, Bob Larkin. Cock you up with a cushion indeed! if you sit the less, you'll dance the more. Ah, Matty, I see you're eyeing my tin sconces there; well, sure they have them at the county ball, when candlesticks are scarce, and what would you expect grander from a poor lone woman? besides, we must have plenty of lights, or how could the beaux see the girls?--though I see, Harry Cassidy, by your sly look, that _you_ think they look as well in the dark--ah! you _divil_!" and she slapped his shoulder as she ran past. "Ah! Mister Murphy, I'm delighted to see you; what kept you so late?--the election to be sure. Well, we're beating them, ain't we? Ah! the old country for ever. I hope Edward O'Connor will be here. Come, begin the dance; there's the piper and the fiddler in the corner as idle as a mile-stone without a number. Tom Durfy, don't ask me to dance, for I'm engaged for the next four sets."