Having dined, her worthy son mixed a tumbler of punch, and while drinking it, he amused himself, as was his custom, by singing snatches of various songs, and drumming with his fingers upon the table; whilst every now and then he could hear the tones of his mother’s voice in high altercation with Hogan and his brothers.  This, however, after a time, ceased, and she returned to the parlor a good deal chafed by the dispute.

“There’s one thing I wonder at,” she observed, “that of all men in the neighborhood, Gerald Cavanagh would allow sich vagabonds as they an Kate Hogan is, to put in his kiln.  Troth, Hycy,” she added, speaking to him in a warning and significant tone of voice, “if there wasn’t something low an’ mane in him, he wouldn’t do it.”

     “’Tis when the cup is smiling before us. 
     And we pledge unto our hearts—­’

“Your health, mother.  Mr. Burke, here’s to you!  Why I dare say you are right, Mrs. Burke.  The Cavanagh family is but an upstart one at best; it wants antiquity, ma’am—­a mere affair of yesterday, so what after all could you expect from it?”

Honest Jemmy looked at him and then groaned.  “An upstart family!—­that’ll do—­oh, murdher—­well, ’tis respectable at all events; however, as to havin’ the Hogans about them—­they wor always about them; it was the same in their father’s time.  I remember ould Laghlin Hogan, an’ his whole clanjamfrey, men an’ women, young an’ old, wor near six months out o’ the year about ould Gerald Cavanagh’s—­the present man’s father; and another thing you may build upon—­that whoever ud chance to speak a hard word against one o’ the Cavanagh family, before Philip Hogan or any of his brothers, would stand a strong chance of a shirtful o’ sore bones.  Besides, we all know how Philip’s father saved Mrs. Cavanagh’s life about nine or ten months after her marriage.  At any rate, whatever bad qualities the vagabonds have, want of gratitude isn’t among them.”

“’------That are true, boys, true,
The sky of this life opens o’er us,
And heaven—­’

M’Bride, ma’am, will be a severe loss to his family.”

“Throth he will, and a sarious loss—­for among ourselves, there was none o’ them like him.”

     “‘Gives a glance of its blue—­’

“I think I ought to go to the wake to-night.  I know it’s a bit of a descent on my part, but still it is scarcely more than is due to a decent neighbor.  Yes, I shall go; it is determined on.”

     “‘I ga’ed a waefu’ gate yestreen,
     A gate I fear I’ll dearly rue;
     I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
     Twa lovely een o’ bonnie blue.’

“Mine are brown, Mrs. Burke—­the eyes you wot of; but alas! the family is an upstart one, and that is strongly against the Protestant interest in the case.  Heigho!”

Jemmy Burke, having finished his after-dinner pipe and his daily tumbler both together, went out to his men; and Hycy, with whom he had left the drinking materials, after having taken a tumbler or two, put on a strong pair of boots, and changed the rest of his dress for a coarser ’suit, bade his mother a polite good-bye, and informed her, that as he intended to be present at M’Bride’s wake he would most probably not return until near morning.