Christmas was always a merry season at Castle Connor, and not less merry than usual was the Christmas time of which I am going to tell you. The house was as full as it could hold, and added to the usual number of guests were three English cousins, who had come over to pay their first visit to their Irish relatives. At the public school from which they came, they were known as Max, Major, and Minor, and so we shall name them here. Max (whose real name was Dick Lindsaye) was in his seventeenth year, and only famous at K⸺ for being the biggest dunce, the biggest bully, and the biggest boaster in the school; for, while careful to avoid every kind of danger, he was prone to forge Falstaffian tales of the dangers he had surmounted, when no one was there to see him. Tom and Harold Cunliffe were his step-brothers; the former was a soft-faced boy, about thirteen years of age, with curly, brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a countenance beaming with good nature and good temper, but evidently a being more capable of enjoying the _dolce far niente_ than any state of life in which he might be expected to be an active or energetic member of society. Yes, a quiet, easy-going youth was Tom, very different from the twelve-year-old Harry, a wiry, springy young fellow, who, while living in great awe of his big brother, was always laying plots for fun at his expense. Major and Minor were great favourites wherever they went, while no one could endure Max’s snobbish conceit and self-importance. To have a speck of mud upon his highly polished boots, or a grain of dust upon his ever-glossy clothes, was to spoil his pleasure for the day, while his young brothers, unfortunately, went off to the opposite extreme, and were only too regardless of their personal appearance. The family at Castle Connor consisted of the father, mother, two daughters, and three sons. The latter were manly, warm-hearted youths, quick-tempered and quick-witted, first rate horsemen, masters of all field sports, but not very polished in their manners. They had never been to any school, but were brought up at home, under the care of a tutor, whom they managed just as they pleased, and who found himself in too snug a berth at Castle Connor, to venture to make it less agreeable by complaints that his pupils too often preferred sporting to Latin. He (Mr. Moriarty) was at Christmas time always absent, enjoying the holidays at his own home, so the youths were then left entirely to their own devices, which generally led them to play tricks of all kinds upon the rest of the household.