When I got up next morning, I found them all a-field working at the hay. It was a beautiful morning, and Eugene conducted me round his little estate, which was finely situated, compact, and advantageously laid out. The cottage lay on the top of a small rise in the centre of the farm; before it was a lawn of about an acre, skirted on each side by trees, beyond which lay his pasture ground and meadows, divided from the adjoining farm by a stream, whose margin was fringed with the birch, the hazel, and the willow. Behind the cottage was his orchard and garden; the house itself consisted of one story, with what is commonly called the loft, formed into bed-rooms, the windows being raised in the neatly-thatched roof; outside it was dashed and white-washed, and around the door and windows was trained a profusion of honeysuckle, whose flowers shed a delightful fragrance through every apartment. The interior corresponded with its appearance outside; without any gaudy superfluity there was every thing conducive to comfort, and the greatest regularity and neatness was apparent throughout the whole. But all this was nothing to the pure affection that reigned in the bosom of its inmates towards each other. Whatever trouble Eugene’s mother might have had with her family when young, she was now richly repaid; they hung on every word she said as if it were the precepts of an angel—they anticipated every wish, shunned every subject which would cause her disquiet, while she treated them with all the affection of a mother and all the confidence of a friend. The surrounding commotions touched them not. Mrs M’Carthy was almost adored among her neighbours for her benevolence, and, what they termed, her _true Irish spirit_; and Eugene, though a young man, had more influence over the members of the lawless associations in his neighbourhood than almost any individual in the county, which he never failed to exert on all occasions when it was in his power to prevent their atrocities. After breakfast,—‘Come,’ said Eugene, ‘as I have nothing very particular to do, I will conduct you over the classic ground in the neighbourhood, and as Mary possesses the _amor patria_ in so eminent a degree, she will accompany us, and describe all its beauties, lay open the arcana of every fairy mount, read you long lectures on the _good people_, their midnight gambols and mischievous freaks; show you the stream over which the _Banshee_ raises her ominous howl, as a prelude to the death of a M’Carthy, or describe the form and properties of _Cluricaunes_, _Phookas_, _Fetches_, &c. &c., for she is deeply learned in fairy lore.’ ‘Never mind him,’ said Mary, ‘few people delight more in hearing these fairy legends than Eugene himself.’