In the meantime, Kate Kavanagh, never dreaming of the grand hubbub about her, assisted to cut down Mr Costigan’s wheat; and so full of songs, jokes, and attractions was she, that it was observed, even by the farmer himself, that the men, old and young, surpassed themselves at reaping that day. Indeed, Kate set them an excellent pattern; for, notwithstanding that her tongue moved in double-quick time, she took care that her hands should be equally nimble; and at nightfall, thanks to Kate and the influence of her black eyes, sharp and bright as her sickle, the very large field of wheat was cut down, bound, and stooked to the owner’s satisfaction. Yet, after all, the “flower of Forth” bloomed too near Dennis, or rather his sons, to allow him to be perfectly content. “How yer father squints at me!” observed Kate to James Costigan, her ardent admirer, and to whom, by the way, she contrived to keep close during the day. “He looks at me as if I was a crab apple, an’ he had just taken a bite. Wouldn’t it be the best ov a good joke, now, if I’d make him change his tune in spite ov himself?” Jem looked at her very tenderly as he replied, “Ye do as you like with _us_, Kate darlin’, but I doubt yer power over my father. He is flent to purty girls, an’ above all to you.” “We shall see,” said Kate; and that very evening, between coaxing and pulling, she actually brought the portly farmer, albeit in no dancing mood, to dance with her (when Peter Hamilton and his violin _happened_ in after supper), to the amazement and amusement of a kitchen full of spectators, though, as honest Dennis confessed while wiping his broad brows, “he didn’t take sitch a spree for ten years afore!” Handsome Kate at the end of it looked knowingly at Jem Costigan, as much as to say, “You see this, and you’ll see more.” The next morning an express arrived to Dennis Costigan with the news that his sister’s daughter, Miss Peggy Malone, was about to “change her state,” and that her uncle’s company was required at the wedding. “Och, murther!” cried the farmer when he had sufficiently expressed his surprise at the news, “this ould brown coat ov mine will never do for a weddin’!--turn it which way I will, it looks shabby enough--pieced at the elbows an’ torn at the cuffs! So, Jem, asthore, take the black mare an’ set off this minnit to Waxford, an’ buy me the makin’s ov a coat an’ waistcoat ov good green cloth; it always became my complexion. An’, Jem, for yer head don’t make any mistake this time. Those three months past you’re full ov mistakes, an’ nothin’ else.”