There was something irresistibly comic in the quiet manner that Houligan said, "Thank you, says I;" and the account of his canine adventure altogether excited much mirth amongst his auditors. As they pursued their journey many a joke was passed and repartee returned, and the laugh rang loudly and often from the merry little group as they trudged along. In the course of the next mile's march their numbers were increased by some half dozen, that, one by one, suddenly appeared, by leaping over the hedge on the road, or crossing a stile from some neighbouring path. All these new comers pursued the same route, and each gave the same answer when asked where he was going. It was universally this-- "Why, then, where would I be goin' but to the berrin'?" At a neighbouring confluence of roads straggling parties of from four to five were seen in advance, and approaching in the rear, and the highway soon began to wear the appearance it is wont to do on the occasion of a patron, a fair, or a market day. Larry Lanigan was in evident enjoyment at this increase of numbers; and as the crowd thickened his exultation increased, and he often repeated his ejaculation, aiready noticed in Larry's opening soliloquy, "Why, then, an' isn't it a grate day intirely for Ireland!!!" And now, horsemen were more frequently appearing, and their numbers soon amounted to almost a cavalcade; and sometimes a car, that is to say, the car, common to the country for agricultural purposes, might be seen, bearing a cargo of women; videlicet, "the good woman" herself, and her rosy-cheeked daughters, and maybe a cousin or two, with an aide de camp aunt to assist in looking after the young ladies. The roughness of the motion of this primitive vehicle was rendered as accommodating as possible to the gentler sex, by a plentiful shake down of clean straw on the car, over which a feather bed was laid, and the best quilt in the house over that, to make all smart, possibly a piece of hexagon patchwork of "the misthriss" herself, in which the tawdriest calico patterns served to display the taste of the rural sempstress, and stimulated the rising generation to feats of needlework. The car was always provided with a driver, who took such care upon himself "for a rayson he had:" he was almost universally what is called in Ireland "a clane boy," that is to say, a well made, good-looking young fellow, whose eyes were not put into his head for nothing; and these same eyes might be seen wandering backwards occasionally from his immediate charge, the dumb baste, to "take a squint" at some, or maybe one, of his passengers. This explains "the rayson he had" for becoming driver. Sometimes he sat on the crupper of the horse, resting his feet on the shafts of the car, and bending down his head to say something tindher to the colleen that sat next him, totally negligent of his duty as guide. Sometimes when the girl he wanted to be sweet on was seated at