Mat used to run down for a day or two when business permitted, and take possession of his shabby little room under the roof. How happy honest Tom would be on these occasions! how he would chuckle to himself as he saw his customers--female customers especially--cast sidelong glances at the handsome dark-haired youth who lounged by the door! 'Old Mrs. Stevenson took him for a gentleman,' Tom remarked to Susan once, rubbing his hands over the joke. 'Mat is so well set up, and wears such a good coat; just look at his boots!--and his shirts are ever so much finer than mine; he looks like a young lord in his Sunday best,' went on Tom, who admired his young brother with every fibre of his heart. Mat was quite aware of the sensation he made among his old friends and neighbours; he liked to feel his own importance. He came pretty frequently at first; he was tolerant of Susan's homeliness and sisterly advice, he took kindly to Prissy, and brought her a fine coral necklace to wear on her fat dimpled neck; but after a year or two he came less often. 'Leave him alone,' Susan would say when Tom grumbled to her over his pipe of an evening; 'Mat has grown too fine for the shop; nothing pleased him last time. He wanted napkins with his food because of his moustache, and he complained that his bed was so hard he could not sleep on it. It is easy to see that our homely ways do not suit him. I wish your heart were not set on him so much, Tom; it is thankless work to cling to a person who wants to get rid of his belongings.' 'Nay, Susan, you are too hard on the lad,' her husband remonstrated; 'Mat will never cut us--he has an affectionate heart. He is only having his fling, as lads, even the best of them, will at times. By and by he will settle down, and then we shall see more of him.' But in spite of Tom's faith, that time never came. By and by Mat wrote with a greater flourish than ever. 'Wish me joy, my dear Susan and Tom,' he wrote, 'for I am going to be married, and to the prettiest and the dearest girl in the world. Just fancy, Tom, her uncle is a Dean! what do you think of your brother Mat now? "Turn again, turn again, Mat O'Brien"--that is what the bells said to me, and, by Jove! they were right. Haven't I had a rise this Christmas?--and now my dear little Olive has promised to take me for better or worse. Oh, Tom, you should just see her--she is such a darling! and I am the luckiest fellow in the world to get her! I can see Susan shaking her head and saying in her wise way that I am young to take the cares of life on my shoulders; but when a fellow is head over heels in love, he cannot stop to balance arguments. And after all, we are not so imprudent, for when the Dean dies, and he is an old man, Olive will have a pretty penny of her own. So wish me joy, dear Tom, and send me your blessing.' Tom fairly wept over this letter; he carried it about with him and read it at intervals during the day.