‘DEAR AUNT,--Don’t blow up or make a rumpus, but if I had not taken the mare and come over here this morning, the rascally police with their search-warrant might have been down upon Mr. Kearney without a warning. They were all stiff and cold enough at first: they are nothing to brag of in the way of cordiality even yet--Dick especially--but they have asked me to stay and dine, and, I take it, it is the right thing to do. Send me over some things to dress with--and believe me your affectionate nephew, ‘G. O’SHEA. ‘I send the mare back, and shall walk home to-morrow morning. ‘There’s a great Castle swell here, a Mr. Walpole, but I have not made his acquaintance yet, and can tell nothing about him.’ * * * * * Towards a late hour of the afternoon a messenger arrived with an ass-cart and several trunks from O’Shea’s Barn, and with the following note:-- ‘DEAR NEPHEW GORMAN,--O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn, nor are the horses there at public livery. So much for your information. As you seem fond of “warnings,” let me give you one, which is, To mind your own affairs in preference to the interests of other people. The family at Kilgobbin are perfectly welcome--so far as I am concerned--to the fascinations of your society at dinner to-day, at breakfast to-morrow, and so on, with such regularity and order as the meals succeed. To which end, I have now sent you all the luggage belonging to you here.--I am, very respectfully, your aunt, ELIZABETH O’SHEA.’ The quaint, old-fashioned, rugged writing was marked throughout by a certain distinctness and accuracy that betoken care and attention--there was no evidence whatever of haste or passion--and this expression of a serious determination, duly weighed and resolved on, made itself very painfully felt by the young man as he read. ‘I am turned out--in plain words, turned out!’ said he aloud, as he sat with the letter spread out before him. ‘It must have been no common quarrel--not a mere coldness between the families--when she resents my coming here in this fashion.’ That innumerable differences could separate neighbours in Ireland, even persons with the same interests and the same religion, he well knew, and he solaced himself to think how he could get at the source of this disagreement, and what chance there might be of a reconciliation. Of one thing he felt certain. Whether his aunt were right or wrong, whether tyrant or victim, he knew in his heart all the submission must come from the others. He had only to remember a few of the occasions in life in which he had to entreat his aunt’s forgiveness for the injustice she had herself inflicted, to anticipate what humble pie Mathew Kearney must partake of in order to conciliate Miss Betty’s favour. ‘Meanwhile,’ he thought, and not only thought, but said too--‘Meanwhile, I am on the world.’