“Tut!” was Kate’s good-humoured reply, “‘the life ov an ould hat is to cock it,’ as we say in the counthry. The leaf ov it was flappin’ in my eyes; the lads couldn’t see me, nor I them, so a pin settled the bisness;” and nothing could become her fine Spanish face better, though her toilet was made in perfect carelessness, for dashing Kate had other charms to depend on besides beauty. Imprimus, she was the first dancer in the country, outdoing her dancing-master himself at “jigs, reels, thribbles, doubles, hornpipes, and _petticoatees_.” She was a _killing_ dancer in both senses of the word, for no boy or girl could keep it up with the spirit of Kate Kavanagh, and she generally disabled six or eight prime beaus at every “hop” she appeared at, which was nearly every night. The worst of it was (as the sorely annoyed fathers and mothers of the neighbourhood said), “though she fairly kilt all the boys that danced with her, yet sorra one but herself would sarve them for a partner after all!” Then she was, as Orator Shiel said, “Apollyo in petticoats for singin’!” and songs of love, murder, hunting, war, and sea, would charm with double effect, borne on the musical notes of Kate Kavanagh. In short, she was “metal most,” but also too “attractive;” and loud complaints and grievances at last came thundering on her devoted head. “Boys growin’ lazy and crazy--work undone or done badly--time spent an’ mis-spent--messages forgotten and mistaken--girls neglected--matches broken--eternal dancin’, fightin’, black eyes an’ bloody noses”--all, all was laid in a bundle at the door of handsome, animated, dashing, yet very innocent Kate Kavanagh. “What will be done with her at all at all?” iterated the suffering fathers and mothers all round the country. “What will we do with her at all?” “I’ll tell ye, naiburs,” responded one of the elders, as a body of them returned from chapel on the Sunday after Mosey Fortune’s great “flare up,” at which three topping bloods fought for the honour of first figuring on the floor with the “belle o’ the barony.” “Let a respectable dacent naibur, sitch as Dennis Costigan here for example, go to her father as a friend to advise him to get his daughther married out ov hand, for fear some harm will happen. An’, throth, harm _will_ happen; for if she’s not the destruction ov herself, she will be the ruination ov others. So, Misther Costigan, let you be the man to spake to Miles Kavanagh.” “Agreed,” said Dennis Costigan, who was one of the party, and also a suffering father; and on the ensuing Thursday he intended to proceed on the mission.