“I’ve been saying as much myself this five years,” said Andrew. “Ever since your mother died. And I don’t know how it is we never done it.” “It might be,” said Mary, “because you never asked me.” “Sure, where was the use of my asking you,” said Andrew, “when you knew as well as myself and everyone else that it was to be?” “Anyway,” said Mary, “the young lady says we’re doing it, and, what’s more, we’re doing it to-day. What have you to say to that now, Andrew?” Andrew chuckled in a good-humoured and tolerant way. “What I’d say to that, Mary,” he said, “is that it would be a pity to disappoint the young lady if her heart’s set on it.” “It’s not my heart that’s set on it,” said Miss Clarence indignantly. “I don’t care if you never get married. It’s your own hearts, both of them, that ought to be set on it.” As a journalist of some years’ experience she had, of course, outgrown all sentiment. But she was shocked by the cool indifference of these lovers who were prepared to marry merely to oblige a stranger whom they had never seen before and were not likely to see again. But Mary Nally did not seem to feel that there was any want of proper ardour in Andrew’s way of settling the date of their wedding. “If you don’t get up out of your chair,” she said, “and be off to Father McFadden to tell him what’s wanted, it’ll never be done either to-day or any other day.” Andrew roused himself with a sigh. He took his hat from a peg, and a stout walking-stick from behind a porter barrel. Then, politely but firmly, he put the two women out of the house and locked the door behind them. He was ready to marry Mary Nally--and her shop. He was not prepared to trust her among his porter barrels and his whisky bottles until the ceremony was actually completed. The law requires that a certain decorous pause shall be made before the celebration of a marriage. Papers must be signed or banns published in church. But Father McFadden had lived so long on Inishrua that he had lost respect for law and perhaps forgotten what the law was. Besides, Andrew was King of the island by right of popular assent, and what is the use of being a king if you cannot override a tiresome law? The marriage took place that afternoon, and Miss Clarence was present, acting as a kind of bridesmaid. No sheep or heifers were killed, and no inordinate quantity of porter was drunk. There was, indeed, no special festivity on the island, and the other inhabitants took very little notice of what was happening. They were perhaps, as Michael Kane said, too sleepy to be stirred with excitement. But in spite of the general apathy, Miss Clarence was fairly well satisfied with her experience. She felt that she had a really novel subject for the first of her articles on the life and customs of the Irish islanders. The one thing that vexed her was the thought that Michael Kane had been laughing at her while he talked to her on the way out to the island. On the way home she spoke to him severely.