“Ah, but you must do more than jist ask her that way. She’ll never make up her mind to go before the priest, unless you say something sthronger to her. Jist tell her, plump out, you’re ready and willing, and get the thing done before Lent. What’s to hindher you?—shure, you know,” she added, in a whisper, “you’ll not get sich a fortune as Anty’s in your way every day. Spake out, man, and don’t be afraid of her: take my word she won’t like you a bit the worse for a few kisses.” Martin promised to comply with his sister’s advice, and to sound Anty touching their marriage on the following morning after mass. On the Sunday morning, at breakfast, the widow proposed to Anty that she should go to mass with herself and her daughters; but Anty trembled so violently at the idea of showing herself in public, after her escape from Dunmore House, that the widow did not press her to do so, although afterwards she expressed her disapprobation of Anty’s conduct to her own girls. “I don’t see what she has to be afeard of,” said she, “in going to get mass from her own clergyman in her own chapel. She don’t think, I suppose, that Barry Lynch’d dare come in there to pull her out, before the blessed altar, glory be to God.” “Ah but, mother, you know, she has been so frighted.” “Frighted, indeed! She’ll get over these tantrums, I hope, before Sunday next, or I know where I’ll wish her again.” So Anty was left at home, and the rest of the family went to mass. When the women returned, Meg manoeuvred greatly, and, in fine, successfully, that no one should enter the little parlour to interrupt the wooing she intended should take place there. She had no difficulty with Jane, for she told her what her plans were; and though her less energetic sister did not quite agree in the wisdom of her designs, and pronounced an opinion that it would be “better to let things settle down a bit,” still she did not presume to run counter to Meg’s views; but Meg had some work to dispose of her mother. It would not have answered at all, as Meg had very well learned herself, to caution her mother not to interrupt Martin in his love-making, for the widow had no charity for such follies. She certainly expected her daughters to get married, and wished them to be well and speedily settled; but she watched anything like a flirtation on their part as closely as a cat does a mouse. If any young man were in the house, she’d listen to the fall of his footsteps with the utmost care; and when she had reason to fear that there was anything like a lengthened _tête-à-tête_ upstairs, she would steal on the pair, if possible, unawares, and interrupt, without the least reserve, any billing and cooing which might be going on, sending the delinquent daughter to her work, and giving a glower at the swain, which she expected might be sufficient to deter him from similar offences for some little time.