That there was nothing ‘stuck-up’ or pretentious about this mode of being accompanied by one’s groom--a proposition scarcely assailable--was Miss Betty’s declaration, delivered in a sort of challenge to the world. Indeed, certain ticklesome tendencies in Judy, particularly when touched with the heel, seemed to offer the strongest protest against the practice; for whenever pushed to any increase of speed or admonished in any way, the beast usually responded by a hoist of the haunches, which invariably compelled Paddy to clasp his mistress round the waist for safety--a situation which, however repugnant to maiden bashfulness, time, and perhaps necessity, had reconciled her to. At all events, poor Paddy’s terror would have been the amplest refutation of scandal, while the stern immobility of Miss Betty during the embrace would have silenced even malevolence. On the present occasion, a sharp canter of several miles had reduced Judy to a very quiet and decorous pace, so that Paddy and his mistress sat almost back to back--a combination that only long habit enabled Kate to witness without laughing. ‘Are you alone up at the castle, dear?’ asked Miss Betty, as she rode along at her side; ‘or have you the house full of what the papers call “distinguished company”?’ ‘We are quite alone, godmother. My brother is with us, but we have no strangers.’ ‘I am glad of it. I’ve come over to “have it out” with your father, and it’s pleasant to know we shall be to ourselves.’ Now, as this announcement of having ‘it out’ conveyed to Kate’s mind nothing short of an open declaration of war, a day of reckoning on which Miss O’Shea would come prepared with a full indictment, and a resolution to prosecute to conviction, the poor girl shuddered at a prospect so certain to end in calamity. ‘Papa is very far from well, godmother,’ said she, in a mild way. ‘So they tell me in the town,’ said the other snappishly. ‘His brother magistrates said that the day he came in, about that supposed attack--the memorable search for arms--’ ‘Supposed attack! but, godmother, pray don’t imagine we had invented all that. I think you know me well enough and long enough to know--’ ‘To know that you would not have had a young scamp of a Castle aide-de-camp on a visit during your father’s absence, not to say anything about amusing your English visitor by shooting down your own tenantry.’ ‘Will you listen to me for five minutes?’ ‘No, not for three.’ ‘Two, then--one even--one minute, godmother, will convince you how you wrong me.’ ‘I won’t give you that. I didn’t come over about you nor your affairs. When the father makes a fool of himself, why wouldn’t the daughter? The whole country is laughing at him. His lordship indeed! a ruined estate and a tenantry in rags; and the only remedy, as Peter Gill tells me, raising the rents--raising the rents where every one is a pauper.’ ‘What would you have him do, Miss O’Shea?’ said Kate, almost angrily.