“Faith,” replied Finigan, “it's a joke that very few do enjoy, I think.” “What is?” “Why, the gallows, sir--ha! ha! ha! but don't forget the O if you plaise--ever and always the big O before Finigan--ha! ha! ha!” “Come, Clinton,” said Hycy, “move on a little. D--n that fellow!” he cried--“he's a sneering scoundrel; and I'm half inclined to think he has more in him than one would be apt to give him credit for.” “By the way, what could the visit to Ahadarra mean?” asked Clinton. “Do you know anything about it, Hycy?” “Not about this; but it is very likely that I shall cause them, or one of them at least, to visit it on some other occasion ere long; and that's all I can say now. Curse that keening, what a barbarous practice it is!' “I think not,” said the other; “on the contrary, I am of opinion that there's something strikingly wild and poetical in it something that argues us Irish to be a people of deep feeling and strong imagination: two of the highest gifts of intellect.” “All stuff,” replied the accomplished Hycy, who, among his other excellent qualities, could never afford to speak a good word to his country Or her people. “All stuff and barbarous howling that we learned from the wolves when we had them in Ireland. Here we are at the graveyard.” “Hycy,” said his friend, “it never occurred to me to thing of asking what religion you believe in.” “It is said,” replied Hycy, “that a fool may propose a question which a wise man can't answer. As to religion, I have not yet made any determination among the variety that is abroad. A man, however, can be at no loss; for as every one of them is the best, it matters little which of them he chooses. I think it likely I shall go to church with your sister, should we ever do matrimony together. To a man like me who's indifferent, respectability alone ought to determine.” Clinton made no reply to this; and in a few minutes afterward they entered the churchyard, the coffin having been taken out of the hearse and borne on the shoulders of her four nearest relatives,--Tom M'Mahon, in deep silence and affliction, preceding it as chief mourner. There is a prostrating stupor, or rather a kind of agonizing delirium that comes over the mind when we are forced to mingle with crowds, and have our ears filled with the voices of lamentation, the sounds of the death-bell, or the murmur of many people in conversation. 'Twas thus M'Mahon felt during the whole procession. Sometimes he thought it was relief, and again he felt as if it was only the mere alternation of suffering into a sharper and more dreadful sorrow; for, change as it might, there lay tugging at his heart the terrible consciousness that she, I the bride of his youthful love and the companion of his larger and more manly affection--the blameless wife and the stainless woman--was about to be consigned to the grave, and that his eyes in this life must; never rest upon her again.