They then walked to some distance, where they remained until the “narrow house” was nearly filled, after which they once more surrounded it until the last sod was beaten in.  This being over, the sorrowing group sought their way home with breaking hearts, leaving behind them her whom they had loved so well reposing in the cold and unbroken solitude of the grave.

CHAPTER XIV.—­Mysterious Letter

—­Hycy Disclaims Sobriety—­Ahadarra’s in for it.

One day about a month after Mrs. M’Mahon’s funeral, Harry Clinton was on his way to Jemmy Burke’s, when he met Nanny Peety going towards Ballymacan.

“Well, Nanny,” he inquired, “where are you bound for, now?”

“To the post-office with a letter from Masther Hycy, sir.  I wanted him to tell me who it was for, but he would not.  Will you, Mr. Clinton?” and she held out the letter to him as she spoke.

Clinton felt a good deal surprised to see that it was addressed to his uncle, and also written in a hand which he did not recognize to be that of Hycy Burke.

“Are you sure, Nanny,” he asked, “that this letter was written by Mr. Hycy?”

“Didn’t I see him, sir?” she replied; “he wrote it before my eyes a minute before he handed it to me.  Who is it for, Mr. Clinton?”

“Why are you so very anxious to know, Nanny?” he inquired.

“Sorra thing,” she replied, “but curiosity—­a woman’s curiosity, you know.”

“Well, Nanny, you know, or ought to know, that it would not be right in me to tell you who the letter is for, when Mr. Hycy did not think proper to do so.”

“True enough, sir,” she replied; “an I beg your pardon, Mr. Clinton, for asking you; indeed it was wrong in me to tell you who it came from even, bekaise Mr. Hycy told me not to let any one see it, only jist to slip it into the post-office unknownst, as I passed it; an’ that was what made me wish to know who it was goin’ to, since the thruth must be tould.”

Clinton in turn now felt his curiosity stimulated as to the contents of this mysterious epistle, and he resolved to watch, if possible, what effect the perusal of it might have on his uncle, otherwise he was never likely to hear a syllable that was contained in it, that worthy relative being, from official necessity, a most uncommunicative person in all his proceedings.

“I wonder,” observed Clinton, “that Mr. Hycy would send to any one a letter so slurred and blotted with ink as that is.”

“Ay, but he blotted it purposely himself,” replied Nanny, “and that too surprised me, and made me wish to know what he could mane by it.”

“Perhaps it’s a love-letter, Nanny,” said Clinton, laughing.

“I would like to know who it is to, at any rate,” said the girl; “but since you won’t, tell me, sir, I must try and not lose my rest about it.  Good-bye, Mr. Clinton.”

“Good-bye, Nanny;” and so they started.