'You said you had brought Terence with you. Can he be closeted all this while with his mother? That would be unusual. He does not favour us with much of his society. As I live, here's another visitor. It is such a lovely morning that I shall lay violent hands upon you all. Mr. Cassidy here is one of the best yachtsmen on the bay. We might go for a sail round Ireland's Eye if Terence would only condescend to show himself.' 'Oh yes!' cried ecstatic Sara, 'it would be entrancingly delicious.' She would run and tell my lady, who was probably breakfasting, that she must give us her son for the general good. It was the jolly giant, who on his big bay hunter clattered into the courtyard; come, probably, in search of news on his own account, in spite of what he had said to Terence a few hours before. He had watered his horse at the shebeen, had taken a plunge into the sea to dissipate the fumes of last night's revel, had given red-haired Biddy such a smacking kiss as would have roused the ire of Terence's devoted henchman if he had been within fifty yards, and was now come to pay his respects to the inmates of the Abbey. He praised the dogs in a flurried sort of way, stood on one great foot and then the other, rapping the dust from his full-skirted riding-coat with his hunting-crop, whilst his eyes devoured the fine lines of Miss Wolfe's figure, which indeed compelled admiration through its tight-fitting, high-waisted frock. During the last year he had made considerable advance in the good graces of the chatelaine, and of her first-born. She, as chatelaines ought to be, was delighted to have a host of philanderers hanging about the Abbey, swilling its liquor, devouring its beef, while my lord deigned to make the squireen useful in a multitude of ways. Belonging as he did to the half-mounted class, such homage as he could pay was due to a great lord, who was kind enough to smile upon him. That he might be hand and glove with the United Irishmen was neither here nor there; was he not also an ally of Major Sirr's as well as a _protégé_ of the chancellor's--tolerated too by Curran, Lord Clare's arch-enemy? He was all things to all men, a typical 'tame cat:' it remained to be seen which side he would take when the crisis should come--at least so people remarked who did not know, as we do, that he had taken the oath and was given to mystical questions anent the placing of a bough in the crown of England. A man who can turn his hand to anything, rides well to hounds, sings jovial ditties, makes genteel play with a rapier, can sigh like a furnace, and look languishingly at a pretty girl, is sure of being a general favourite. Doreen liked Mr. Cassidy as much as Shane did, an unusual circumstance, for his likes and dislikes were generally in direct opposition to hers. She was wont to jest at his many blunders, lecture him for his stupidity, allow him greater liberties than were usual between an heiress and a 'half-mounted.' For there was no harm in him.