handful of hard silver was he relieved of by his dutiful sons. Hence the dashing “bit of blood” which carried Dick and Matt alternately over the stubbles--hence the couple of spaniels and the leash of greyhounds, which had the reputation of being the best noses or the fleetest feet in the county--hence the double-barrelled “Rigby” belonging to Dick, which was the admiration and envy of his acquaintances. As they grew up, and cared less for the anger of their father, vicious habits became more settled-looking and systematic with them. They drank to frightful excess whenever they had the slightest opportunity. No one ever saw them for twenty minutes at a time without having full proof that they were slaves to as odious and disgusting a tyranny as ever the depraved tastes of human creatures created for mankind--I mean, no one ever saw them for so long a time without a tobacco pipe between their teeth, and surrounded by every one of the usual nastinesses which accompany the practice when carried to a hateful extent; and yet, even as they were, the county could not boast of two manlier looking fellows than Richard and Matt Kavanagh when dressed for Sunday mass, which they still attended with a punctuality which would be more praiseworthy if it sprang from anything but a motive of vanity and pride. Under different culture they might have become excellent members of society. They had still some faint pretensions to generosity and spirit, and many a pretty girl of the neighbourhood would have trusted to her sole powers of persuasion for their reclamation. Gerald Kavanagh, the youth of fifteen, was a lad of different stamp. He was open-featured and open-hearted both. _He_ was never seen with a pipe in his mouth, or a tattered “racing calendar” sticking out of his pocket; and while his brothers were out upon their sporting expeditions, or amusing themselves in a less innocent way, it was poor Gerald’s pleasure to scamper across the fields to his uncle James’s garden, and walk, or talk, or read, or play with his pretty little sister Alley, or romp with his pretty little cousins Bill and Bess, and Peter and Dick, after school hours--the time _he_ knew he would find most company looking out for him. Alley and he were as fond as they could be of each other, and not the less so because they did not live entirely together. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is as true a line as ever was penned, whether we apply it to the lover and his mistress, or the brother and his distant sister. Many of us, with sighs and tears, can testify this. It was a lovely sight to see that affectionate boy and his fond sister sauntering along the borheens in the wild-strawberry season, with their arms around each other’s necks in the intervals of their fruit-finding, until they bade each other good-bye for another day, and returned, “with lingering steps and slow,” to homes, alas, how different!