"Mr. Keegan's affairs with me arn't any affairs of yours, Captain Ussher. When I ask you to set them right, then you can talk to me about them." "Hoity toity, Mr. Macdermot; your affairs, and Mr. Keegan's affairs, and my affairs! Why I suppose you'll be calling me out next for taking up a d----d whining thief of a fellow because his brother is a tenant of your father's, and send me the challenge by Mr. Brady, who invited me to a party at his house just now." Thady said nothing to this, but stood with his back to the fire, looking as grim as death. "Oh, Captain Ussher!" said Feemy, "you wouldn't be quarrelling with Thady about nothing? You know he has so much to bother him with the rents and things. Will you come to Mary's wedding to-morrow, Thady?" "Quarrelling with him! 'Deed then and I will not, but it seems he wants to quarrel with me." "When I do want to quarrel with you, Captain Ussher,--that is, should I ever want,--you may be quite certain it's not in a round about way I'll be telling you of it." "No, don't, my boy, for ten to one I shouldn't understand what you'd be after. Didn't you say you'd walk up to Aughermore, Miss Macdermot?" "I'm sorry to baulk Feemy of her walk, Captain Ussher, if she did say so. It's not very often I ask her to put herself out for me; but this afternoon, I shall feel obliged to her not to go." Captain Ussher stared, and Feemy opened wide her large bright eyes; for what reason could her brother desire her to stay in doors? "What can you want me in the house for, Thady, this time of day?" "Well never mind, Feemy; I do want you, and you'll oblige me by staying." Feemy still had on the new collar, and she pulled it off and threw it on the table; she evidently imagined that it had something to do with her brother's unusual request. She certainly would not have put it on in that loose way, had she thought he would have seen it; but then he so seldom came in there. "Well, Captain Ussher," she at last said slowly, "I suppose then I can't go to Aughermore to-day." Captain Ussher had turned to the window as if not to notice Thady's request, and now came back into the middle of the room, as if Feemy's last sentence had been the first he had heard on the subject. "Oh! you have changed your mind, then," said he; and his face acquired the look that Feemy dreaded. "Ladies, you know, are at liberty to think twice." "But, Thady, I did wish to go to Aughermore particularly to-day; wouldn't this evening or to-morrow do?" "No, Feemy," and Thady looked still blacker than Myles; "this evening won't do, nor to-morrow." "Well, Captain Ussher, you see we must put it off," and she looked deprecatingly at her lover. His answering look gave her no comfort; far from it, but he said, "I see no must about it, but that's for you to judge; perhaps you should ask your father's leave to go so far from home."