“Ah! my beautiful flower ov Forth!” sighed out the sentimental counsellor, “any thing but a sleepy potion do you give yer lovers! if ’tis anything, sure I am ’tis a draught to banish sleep for ever! But consarnin’ those vagrant truints ye spaik ov, I ondherstand that you kep thim up beyant their ushial hours ov repose last night, admirin’ yer graceful movemints in yer _Turpfiscorian_ revels, mainin’ the dance at Judy Colfer’s; an’ that man, their father, who is not to be moved with ‘concord of sweet sounds,’ or any sounds at all but the chink ov money, almost snapt my head off a while ago bekase I tould him so. Ah! my Catherine dear, I fear you’ll incounther opposition in that quarther. But ‘_nel desperantum_,’ say I, which mains in plain English, ‘never dispair.’” Catherine said nothing, but instantly began to sing, at the top of her fine rich voice, a song the counsellor had composed in praise of her, and shortly afterwards she had the pleasure to see the two sleepy truants bounding across the yard towards the wheat-field, as if her well-known notes had awaked them. While this magical song was thrilling on all hearts, Kate Kavanagh, the witching Kate! stood apart from the others, singing and laughing alternately, her reaping-hook resting on one arm, and dressed in the every-day fashion of the place--the striped linsey short petticoat, and loose bedgown or wrapper, a dress that would make an ordinary woman frightful, and straw hat, the leaf of which, turned up before and pinned to the crown, displayed her sable locks and fair high forehead to perfection. And many a side-glance the anxious father, Dennis Costigan, cast at this arrangement of Kate’s headgear, as he broadly hinted that “for sartin Miss Kavanagh’s complexion would be intirely spiled if she showed it too much to the sun.”