“I forgot where I was,” the King says, scratching his head. “But, spaking of ould Bob,” he wint on, “no one ever thought how evil and bitther he could be, until his son, the foolish lad, a few days before the ind of his schooling, wrote to the father that he wanted to marry Norah whin he came home, and that he would be home in a few days, he thought. He was breaking the news aisy to the family, d’ye see!
“‘Whew! Hullabaloo! Out of the house with her—the sly, conniving hussy!’ shouted ould Bob, whin he read the letter. ‘Into the road with all we’ve given her! Pull the roof off Costello’s house and dhrive off the place his whole brood of outraygeous villians!’
“So they packed Norah’s boxes—faix, an’ many a fine dhress was in them, too—and bade her begone. The Misthress slipped a bag of goold sovereigns with a letther into one of the chests. Norah took the letther, but she forbade them sending so much as a handkerchief afther her.
“She wouldn’t even ride in the coach that the Misthress had waiting for her outside the grand gate; and all alone, in her brown poplin dhress, she marched down the gravel path, proud, like a queen going to be
