“Well, there isn’t much to choose between her and Maggie there,” returned his hostess; “and, indeed, I may say the same o’ my daughter Anna Maria.  There is but a year between the three, one way or the other.  Well, since you’re so bashful, Mr. Brian, I’d best choose a place for ye.  Will ye sit there on me right, between Bridget and Juliana?  There does be safety in numbers, they say, so ye needn’t be afeard.”

“Afeard is it?” responded Brian, with simulated jocularity, though his countenance still wore an expression of dismay.  “Troth! it ’ud be a poor lookout if I was that easy frightened.  ‘Faint heart,’ ye know.”

But, though Mr. Brennan was very gallant and witty, the entertainment was felt by every one to be somewhat flat, and the relief was general when the young man proposed to go outside and smoke a bit of a pipe.  Mrs. McNally, however, considered it her duty to protest.

“Sure, we’re not that particular,” she observed, with her jolly laugh.  “Don’t be goin’ out in the cold, Mr. Brian.”

“Why, what sort of a fellow would I be at all if I could forget myself that way,” he returned, rising with alacrity.  “Would ye have me pizenin’ the young ladies?  I hope I know me manners better.”

“There’s no denyin’ he has elegant manners,” commented his hostess, as the door closed behind him.  “I never wish to see a nicer young man.  Well, girls, what do ye think of him!”

“The poor fellow was shy, m’mah,” said Juliana.  “He kept blushin’ every time I looked at him.”

“A-ah, g’ long!” exclaimed Bridget, with startling warmth.  “Not a blush on him, then!  Sure, it was his natural colour; he has a beautiful complexion.”

“His eyes was rovin’ from one to the other,” cried Anna Maria, giggling; “I was near dyin’ with laughin’.  You could see as plain as anything he was axin’ himself all the time, “Will I have this one,’ or ‘Will I have that one?’”

“A-ah, not at all,” cried Juliana, reddening.  “I didn’t see a sign of his eyes rovin’.  Anybody with a grain of sense ’ud know his mind was pretty well made up.”

“Listen to that, now!” laughed Nanny, who was certainly good-tempered.  “You’re out there, Ju.  No; but I’ll tell you the way it was with him.  Says he to himself, looking at you, ’That one is the eldest and a fine girl altogether, but her nose is too long.’  An’ then he’d look round at Bridget, ‘She’s got a nice bit o’ money,’ he’d say, ’but she’s a bit too old for me.’  An’ then he’d look at me, ’A nice healthy lump of a girl,’ he’d say, ‘but too many freckles.’  An’ then Maggie maybe ’ud have a turn—­”

“Och, don’t be goin’ on with such nonsense, child,” interrupted her mother, quick to observe certain tokens of an impending storm.  “Don’t let him find yez quarrellin’ an’ fightin’ when he does be comin’ back.  Wait till I tell yez all he’s afther tellin’ me about his own place.  I questioned him a bit afore yez come down.”