was a fool once about her, and b’ Jove, I think I’m not much better now!” he said to himself, indulgently.  The handsomest woman this minute in the barony, and she had never so much as looked crooked at any man since the day he married her.  After all, she had been a credit at that Mount Music show.  There wasn’t a woman to touch her in the place; she had held her own with them; she had spent his money as he had told her to spend it.  Like a lady.  “I like that; how much?  Here’s your money!” That was what he had told her to say, and she had said it all right.  No damned huxterings.  And those women whom he wished her to get on with, she had got on with.  They liked her.  It was easy to see that; and Lady Isabel had often come in to see her since the show, and had stayed for tea, as friendly as you please.  Annie was all right.

The gossip of Cluhir had been as mistaken in the matter of the Mangans as gossip often is.  Francis Mangan had married his wife for the entirely unjudicious reason that her beauty had mastered his common sense.  After his marriage his common sense, having regained the upper hand, was satisfied that, even though her

  “Charms were to change by to-morrow
  And fleet in his arms,”

she would still be the only wife in the world for him.  None the less he did not pretend indifference to the knowledge that his wife was the handsomest woman in Cluhir, and there was, indeed, no reason why he should do so.  And thus the Big Doctor had a double triumph.

There came a fumbling tap on the door, it opened a little, and Hannah’s head came twisting round it.

“Docthor!” spoke the head, like a Teraph, “the Misthress says to have ye come in.  The supper’s ready, and the priest is in it.”

This remarkable statement was accepted by the Doctor with composure, as expressing the fact that Father Greer had arrived.

“Tell her I’m coming this minute,” he said, rising ponderously to his feet; “say to them to go down without me.”

He locked up the fees that were lying on the table, being a careful man, and washed his huge, pale hands with the particularity that a doctor brings to that task.  Huge though they were, they had the sensitiveness that is the gift of music, and is also part of the endowment of the surgeon.

“Ah, here he is now!” said Mrs. Mangan, as the Doctor came, enormously, into the small dining-room.  “For shame for you, Francis, to be so late.”

“Ah, don’t scold him, Mrs. Mangan!” said the priest simpering conventionally.  “Wasn’t it ministering to the afflicted that delayed him!  Doctors mustn’t be subjected to the rules that bind ordinary people!”

“That’s right, Father,” said the Doctor, beginning to carve a large, cold goose, with the skill that his trade bestows; “stand up for me now!  Don’t let her bully me—­though indeed I might be used to it by this time!”

“Doesn’t he look like it, the poor fella!” scoffed Mrs. Mangan, directing a melting look at her husband; “starved and pairsecuted!  That’s what he is!”