“Pulliliew! is that the feelin’ ye has for yer fella-craithurs, Misther Costigan. But indeed I often sed that same to him myself. ‘Stay at home, honey,’ I says to him, ‘an’ don’t be losin’ yer sleep an’ flittherin’ yer slippers at them dances.’ ‘Hould yer whisht, mother,’ he’ll say to me thin (for he is a mighty obaydient child), ‘love sthrikes the little as well as the big, an’ I wouldn’t have a sowl above buttons if I wouldn’t take every opportunity ov meetin’ an’ coortin’ Kate Kavanagh.’ So ye see the win’ sits in that quarther, Misther Costigan.” Mr Costigan actually stamped on the floor with passion when he heard the name of Kate Kavanagh; and as the tailor’s mother perceived unusual anger in his countenance, she flattered herself that it was all sympathy for her “darlint Jemmy,” and she hastened to give him the particulars “ov the murdher” foul and unnatural. “So now, my darlint Misther Costigan,” she concluded, “his poor eyes is black an’ blue, and closed up into the bargain, an’ he couldn’t handle a needle if it was for Misther Grogan Morgan himself--God bless him for the fine lan’lord that he is.” If poor Mrs Nowlan knew but all, little sympathy had her wealthy visitor for her battered son, when he understood the cause of his woes, and her pathetic touches of tenderness went for nothing. Muttering something about “hanging all fools and mothers of fools,” he took a gruff leave of the widow, and returned home with his cloth. There was no other tailor nearer than Wexford, and it was fated that he should wear his old brown coat at the wedding. But that was not his only annoyance. The evening before he set out on his journey, he found that the horse he intended to ride wanted two shoes; and fearing to trust his sons (both of whom were smitten with the “belle o’ the barony”) in their present plight, he brought the animal to the forge himself. No smith was to be found. “Arrah, where the d----l is he?” cried the farmer, quite exasperated, and addressing a girl standing knitting at the door of a house near the forge. “Sorra bit ov us knows, Misther Costigan,” replied the damsel; “but we’re guessin’ that he is either at the public house, or at Miles Kavanagh’s, hankerin’ afther his daughther, for betwixt the two places he spinds the most ov his time.” Dennis Costigan said nothing, but he raised up his hands and eyes--eloquence more expressive than words. Kate Kavanagh again!