A station is no common event, and accordingly the web was cut up, and the tailor left a wedding-suit, half-made, belonging to Edy Dolan, a thin old bachelor, who took it into his head to try his hand at becoming a husband ere he’d die.  As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit upon, and a new drugget quilt was spread beside it, for his journeymen and apprentices.  With nimble fingers they plied the needle and thread, and when night came, a turf was got, into which was stuck a piece of rod, pointed at one end and split at the other; the “the white candle,” slipped into a shaving of the fringe that was placed in the cleft end of the stick, was then lit, whilst many a pleasant story, told by Jemmy, who had been once in Dublin for six weeks, delighted the circle of lookers-on that sat around them.

At length the day previous to the important one arrived.  Hitherto, all hands had contributed to make every thing in and about the house look “dacent”—­scouring, washing, sweeping, pairing, and repairing, had been all disposed of.  The boys got their hair cut to the quick with the tailor’s scissors; and such of the girls as were not full grown, not only that which grew on the upper part of the head taken off, by a cut somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that they looked extremely wild and unsettled with their straight locks projecting over their ears; every thing, therefore, of the less important arrangements had been gone through—­the weighty and momentous concern was as yet unsettled.

This was the feast; and alas! never was the want of experience more strongly felt than here.  Katty was a bad cook, even to a proverb; and bore so indifferent a character in the country for cleanliness, that very few would undertake to eat her butter.  Indeed, she was called Katty Sallagh (* Dirty Katy) on this account:  however, this prejudice, whether ill or weil founded, was wearing fast away, since Phaddhy had succeeded to the stocking of guineas, and the Lisnaskey farm.  It might be, indeed, that her former poverty helped her neighbors to see this blemish more clearly:  but the world is so seldom in the habit of judging people’s qualities or failings through this uncharitable medium, that the supposition is rather doubtful.  Be this as it may, the arrangements for the breakfast and dinner must be made.  There was plenty of bacon, and abundance of cabbages—­eggs, ad infinitum—­oaten and wheaten bread in piles—­turkeys, geese, pullets, as fat as aldermen—­cream as rich as Croesus—­and three gallons of poteen, one sparkle of which, as Father Philemy said in the course of the evening, would lay the hairs on St. Francis himself in his most self-negative mood, if he saw it.  So far so good:  everything excellent and abundant in its way.  Still the higher and more refined items—­the deliciae epidarum—­must be added.  White bread, and tea, and sugar, were yet to be got; and lump-sugar for the punch; and a tea-pot and cups and saucers to be borrowed; all which was accordingly done.