“Be the Holy St. Lucifer,” said her husband, “if I wanst thought that traichery ’ud enter your head, I’d take good care that it’s in hell you’d waken some fine mornin’ afore long.  So mind yourself, Kate, my honey.”

“Are you in nobody else’s power but mine?” she replied, “ax yourselves that—­an’ now do you mind yourself, Bat, my pet, and all o’ yez.”

“What is the raison,” asked her husband, “that I see you an’ Nanny Peety colloguin’ an’ huggermuggerin’ so often together of late?”

“Ah,” she replied, with a toss of disdain, “what a manly fellow you are to want to get into women’s saicrets! you may save your breath though.”

“Whatever you collogue about, all I say is, that I don’t like a bone in the same Nanny Peety’s body.  She has an eye in her head that looks as if it knew one’s thoughts.”

“An’ maybe it does.  One thing I know, and every one knows it, that it’s a very purty eye.”

“Tell her, then, to keep out o’ this; we want no spies here.”

“Divil a word of it; she’s my niece, an’ the king’s highway is as free to her as it is to you or anybody else.  She’ll be welcome to me any time she comes, an’ let me see who’ll dare to mislist her.  She feels as she ought to do, an’ as every woman ought to do, ay, an’ every man, too, that is a man, or anything but a brute an’ a coward—­she feels for that unfortunate, heart-broken girl ‘ithout;’ an’ it’ll be a strange thing if them that brought her to what she’s sufferin’ won’t suffer themselves yet; there’s a God above still, I hope, glory be to His name!  Traichery!” she exclaimed; “ah, you ill-minded villains, it’s yourselves you’re thinkin’ of, an’ what you desarve.  As for myself, it’s neither you nor your villainy that’s in my head, but the sorrowful heart that’s in that poor girl ‘ithout—­ay, an’ a broken one; for, indeed, broked it is; and it’s not long she’ll be troub’lin’ either friend or foe in this world.  The curse o’ glory upon you all, you villains, and upon every one that had a hand in bringing her to this!”

Having uttered these words, she put her cloak and bonnet upon her, and left the house, adding as she went out, “if it’s any pleasure to you to know it, I’ll tell you.  I’m goin’ to meet Nancy Peety this minute, an’ you never seen sich colloguin’ an’ hugger-muggerin’ as we’ll have, plaise goodness—­ah, you ill-thinkin’, skulkin’ villains!”

Kate Hogan, though a tigress when provoked, and a hardened, reckless creature, scarcely remarkable for any particular virtue that could be enumerated, and formidable from that savage strength and intrepidity for which she was so well known, was yet not merely touched by the sufferings of Kathleen Cavanagh, but absolutely took an interest in them, at once so deep and full of sympathy, as to affect her temper and disturb her peace of mind.  Notwithstanding her character she was still a woman; and, in matters involving the happiness of an innocent and beautiful creature