It was a bright spring morning--one of those breezy, cloud-flitting days, with flashes of gay sunlight alternating with broad shadows, and giving in the tamest landscape every effect the painter's art could summon--that a long procession, consisting of all imaginable vehicles, with many on horseback intermixed, wound their way beneath the grand entrance and through the park of Cro' Martin. Such an opportunity of gratifying long pent-up curiosity had never before offered; since, even when death itself visited the mansion, the habits of exclusion were not relaxed, but the Martins went to their graves in the solemn state of their households alone, and were buried in a little chapel within the grounds, the faint tolling of the bell alone announcing to the world without that one of a proud house had departed. The pace of the carriages was slow as they moved along, their occupants preferring to linger in a scene from which they had been hitherto excluded, struck by the unexpected beauty of the spot, and wondering at all the devices by which it was adorned. A few--a very few--had seen the place in boyhood, and were puzzling themselves to recall this and that memory; but all agreed in pronouncing that the demesne was far finer, the timber better grown, and the fields more highly cultivated than anything they had ever before seen. “I call this the finest place in Ireland, Dan!” said Captain Bodkin, as he rode beside Nelligan's car, halting every now and then to look around him. “There's everything can make a demesne beautiful,--wood, water, and mountain!” “And, better than all, a fine system of farming,” broke in Nelligan. “That's the best field of 'swedes' I ever beheld!” “And to think that a man would leave this to go live abroad in a dirty town in France!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, from the opposite side of the car. “That's perverseness indeed!” “Them there is all Swiss cows!” said Mr. Clinch, in an humble tone. “Not one of them, Clinch! they're Alderneys. The Swiss farm, as they call it, is all on the other side, with the ornamented cottage.” “Dear! dear! there was no end to their waste and extravagance!” muttered Mrs. Nelligan. “Wait till you see the house, ma'am, and you 'll say so, indeed,” said the Captain. “I don't think we 're likely!” observed Nelligan, dryly. “Why so?” “Just that Scanlan told Father Mather the auction would be held in the stables; for as there was none of the furniture to be sold, the house would n't be opened.” “That's a great disappointment!” exclaimed Bodkin. A sentiment fully concurred in by the ladies, who both declared that they'd never have, come so far only to look at pigs and “shorthorns.” “Maybe we 'll get a peep at the gardens,” said Bodkin, endeavoring to console them. “And the sow!” broke in Peter Hayes, who had joined the party some time before. “They tell me she's a beauty. She's Lord Somebody's breed, and beats the world for fat!”