“I don’t know so much about luck thin, Mrs Costelloe,” said the widow, who still professed to think that her son gave quite as much as he got, in marrying Anty Lynch; “I don’t know so much about luck:  Martin was very well as he was; his poor father didn’t lave him that way that he need be looking to a wife for mains, the Lord be praised.”

“And that’s thrue, too, Mrs Kelly,” said the other; “but Miss Anty’s fortune ain’t a bad step to a young man, neither.  Why, there won’t be a young gintleman within tin—­no, not within forty miles, more respectable than Martin Kelly; that is, regarding mains.”

“And you needn’t stop there, Ma’am, neither; you may say the very same regarding characther, too—­and family, too, glory be to the Virgin.  I’d like to know where some of their ancesthers wor, when the Kellys of ould wor ruling the whole counthry?”

“Thrue for you, my dear; I’d like to know, indeed:  there’s nothing, afther all, like blood, and a good characther.  But is it thrue, Mrs Kelly, that Martin will live up in the big house yonder?”

“Where should a man live thin, Mrs Costelloe, when he gets married, but jist in his own house?  Why for should he not live there?”

“That’s thrue agin, to be shure:  but yet, only to think Martin—­living in ould Sim Lynch’s big house!  I wondther what ould Sim would say, hisself, av he could only come back and see it!”

“I’ll tell you what he’d say thin, av he tould the thruth; he’d say there was an honest man living there, which wor niver the case as long as any of his own breed was in it—­barring Anty, I main; she’s honest and thrue, the Lord be good to her, the poor thing.  But the porter’s not to your liking, Mrs Costelloe—­you’re not tasting it at all this morning.”

No one could have been more humble and meek than was Anty herself, in the midst of her happiness.  She had no idea of taking on herself the airs of a fine lady, or the importance of an heiress; she had no wish to be thought a lady; she had no wish for other friends than those of her husband, and his family.  She had never heard of her brother’s last horrible proposal to Doctor Colligan, and of the manner in which his consent to her marriage had been obtained; nor did Martin intend that she should hear it.  She had merely been told that her brother had found that it was for his advantage to leave the neighbourhood altogether; that he had given up all claim to the house; and that his income was to be sent to him by a person appointed in the neighbourhood to receive it.  Anty, however, before signing her own settlement, was particularly careful that nothing should be done, injurious to her brother’s interest, and that no unfair advantage should be taken of his absence.