“Did mother say anything about the schame?”

“Faix, not much; but what she did say, didn’t show she’d much mind for it.  Since Sim Lynch tried to get Toneroe from her, when father died, she’d never a good word for any of them.  Not but what she’s always a civil look for Anty, when she sees her.”

“There’s not much fear she’ll look black on the wife, when you bring the money home with her.  But where’ll you live, Martin?  The little shop at Dunmore’ll be no place for Mrs Kelly, when there’s a lady of the name with L400 a-year of her own.”

“’Deed then, John, and that’s what I don’t know.  May-be I’ll build up the ould house at Toneroe; some of the O’Kellys themselves lived there, years ago.”

“I believe they did; but it was years ago, and very many years ago, too, since they lived there.  Why you’d have to pull it all down, before you began to build it up!”

“May-be I’d build a new house, out and out.  Av’ I got three new lifes in the laise, I’d do that; and the lord wouldn’t be refusing me, av’ I asked him.”

“Bother the lord, Martin; why you’d be asking anything of any lord, and you with L400 a-year of your own?  Give up Toneroe, and go and live at Dunmore House at once.”

“What! along with Barry—­when I and Anty’s married?  The biggest house in county Galway wouldn’t hould the three of us.”

“You don’t think Barry Lynch’ll stay at Dunmore afther you’ve married his sisther?”

“And why not?”

“Why not!  Don’t you know Barry thinks himself one of the raal gentry now?  Any ways, he wishes others to think so.  Why, he’d even himself to Lord Ballindine av’ he could!  Didn’t old Sim send him to the same English school with the lord on purpose?—­tho’ little he got by it, by all accounts!  And d’you think he’ll remain in Dunmore, to be brother-in-law to the son of the woman that keeps the little grocer’s shop in the village?—­Not he!  He’ll soon be out of Dunmore when he hears what his sister’s afther doing, and you’ll have Dunmore House to yourselves then, av’ you like it.”

“I’d sooner live at Toneroe, and that’s the truth; and I’d not give up the farm av’ she’d double the money!  But, John, faith, here’s the judges at last.  Hark, to the boys screeching!”

“They’d not screech that way for the judges, my boy.  It’s the traversers—­that’s Dan and the rest of ’em.  They’re coming into court.  Thank God, they’ll soon be at work now!”

“And will they come through this way?  Faith, av’ they do, they’ll have as hard work to get in, as they’ll have to get out by and by.”

“They’ll not come this way—­there’s another way in for them:  tho’ they are traversers now, they didn’t dare but let them go in at the same door as the judges themselves.”