However disposed to profit by her studies, Miss Daly was occasionally broken in upon by the sound of voices from the kitchen, which, by an unlucky arrangement of the architect, was merely separated from the hall by a narrow corridor. Sometimes the sound was of laughter and merriment; far oftener, however, the noises betokened strife; for so it is, in the very smallest household--there were but two in the present case--unanimity will not always prevail. The contention was no less a one than that great national dispute which has separated the island into two wide and opposing parties; Miss Daly's butler, or man of all work, being a stout representative of southern Ireland; her cook an equally rigid upholder of the northern province. If little Dan Nelligan had the broader cause, he was the smaller advocate, being scarcely four feet in height; while Mrs. M'Kerrigan was fifteen stone of honest weight, and with a _torso_ to rival the Farnese Hercules. Their altercations were daily, almost hourly; for, living in a remote, unvisited spot, they seemed to console themselves for want of collision with the world by mutual disputes and disagreements. To these family jars, habit had so reconciled Miss Daly that she seldom noticed them; indeed, the probability is that, like the miller who wakes up when the mill ceases its clamors, she might have felt a kind of shock had matters taken a quieter course. People who employ precisely the same weapons cannot long continue a warfare without the superiority of one or the other being sure to evince itself. The diversity of the forces, on the contrary, suggests new combinations, and with dissimilar armor the combat may be prolonged to any extent. Thus was it here; Dan's forte was aggravation,--that peculiarly Irish talent which makes much out of little, and, when cultivated with the advantages of natural gifts, enables a man to assume the proud political position of an Agitator, and in time a Liberator. Mrs. M'Kerrigan, slow of thought, and slower of speech, was ill-suited to repel the assaults of so wily and constant a foe; she consequently fell back on the prerogatives of her office in the household, and repaid all Dan's declamation by changes in his diet,--a species of retribution the heaviest she could have hit upon. Such was the present cause of disturbance, and such the reason for Dan's loud denunciations on the “black north,” uttered with a volubility and vehemence that pertain to a very different portion of the empire. Twice had Miss Daly rung the little hand-bell that stood beside her to enforce order, but it was unnoticed in the clamor of the fray, while louder and louder grew the angry voice of Dan Nelligan, which at length was plainly audible in the hall.