“And without a servant!” exclaimed Miss Busk. “Indeed, you may well make the remark, ma'am,” said Mrs. Cronan. “The young lady was brought up in a fashion that was n't practised in my time!” “Where could she have been down that end of the port, I wonder?” said Mrs. Clinch. “She came up from Garra Cliff.” “Maybe she came round by the strand,” said the doctor; “if she did, I don't think there 's one here would like to have followed her.” “I would n't be her horse!” said one; “nor her groom!” muttered another; and thus, gradually lashing themselves into a wild indignation, they opened, at last, a steady fire upon the young lady,--her habits, her manners, and her appearance all coming in for a share of criticism; and although a few modest amendments were put in favor of her horsemanship and her good looks, the motion was carried that no young lady ever took such liberties before, and that the meeting desired to record their strongest censure on the example thus extended to their own young people. If young Nelligan ventured upon a timid question of what it was she had done, he was met by an eloquent chorus of half a dozen voices, recounting mountain excursions which no young lady had ever made before; distant spots visited, dangers incurred, storms encountered, perils braved, totally unbecoming to her in her rank of life, and showing that she had no personal respect, nor--as Miss Busk styled it--“a proper sense of the dignity of woman!” “'T was down at Mrs. Nelligan's, ma'am, Miss Mary was,” said Mrs. Cronan's maid, who had been despatched special to make inquiry on the subject. “At my mother's!” exclaimed Joseph, reddening, without knowing in the least why. And now a new diversion occurred, while all discussed every possible and impossible reason for this singular fact, since the family at the “Nest” maintained no intercourse whatever with their neighbors, not even seeming, by any act of their lives, to acknowledge their very existence.