Nothing could be kinder than the stout homely lady's treatment of her guest. He seemed to have a sad sort of fascination for her. He caught her watching him sometimes with a queer expression of pity, which broke into amicable grins and head-shakings so soon as she found herself detected. Norah, too, turned out to be a good-natured, unpretentious creature. On the whole, Terence was not surprised at his brother's choice, considering what a terror that truculent individual betrayed for high-bred damosels, and how little he was able to appreciate the refined fascinations of the haughty, calm Doreen. 'It stood to reason,' so Terence argued, 'that if he were blind to the existence of a divinity who, in semblance of a mortal maid, abode by his fireside, then, of course, his senses must be gross, and nothing would suit him but a house-wench.' Despite the draggled ball-room finery in which Norah elected to array herself for breakfast, in honour of the guest, he could not but perceive that she was no better than a serving-wench in mistress's attire. But then she was a cheery, pleasant house-wench, instead of a designing, cross one, as might have been the case. So he clasped her to his bosom, and the twain were soon fast friends. In the kitchen things did not go so smoothly. Phil's orders were that he must never go out by daylight; so he sat in the kitchen all day long, staring at Jug Coyle, the collough, who sat muttering and growling as she stared at him. For many years, when mistress of the 'Irish Slave,' Jug had nourished a resentment against this unoffending youth, shaking a lean fist at him as he passed her door, muttering a curse when he called in for 'the laste taste in life of the crayther.' Why? Because she was a collough and he a farrier; or, if he wasn't, why should he wield a firing-iron? Colloughs have always hated farriers, time out of mind, because they are rival practitioners in the art of medicine, and the colloughs nourish a vague belief that, in the days of the Bound Towers, the herbalists were lady-doctors, and that they enjoyed an undisputed sway over both kine and gentlefolk until Crummell introduced the veterinary as a special branch of Æsculapian science. He tried to ingratiate himself with the old dame by playing Peter to her Nurse; but she scorned to be so wheedled, remarking curtly, when he was particularly civil: 'The curse of Crummell light on yez, breed, seed, and branch, ye villainous cow-doctor. The Lord planted our cures in the fields before there was no 'pothecaries.' Which remark being usually irrelevant, not to say incomprehensible, he met it by a good-tempered nod, which brought the irate lady to the extreme of patience.