Commandment. They loved their mother, but despised her, faintly; (again, not too much for compliance with the Commandment aforesaid). Finally, it may be said that Major Dick and Lady Isabel were sincerely attached to one another, and that she took his part, quite frequently, against the children.

If, accepting the tom-cat standard of paternity, Dick Talbot-Lowry had a preference for one kitten more than another, that kitten was, indisputably, Christian.

"The little devil knows the hounds better than I do!" he would say to a brother M.F.H. at the Puppy Show. "Her mother can't keep her out of the kennels. And the hounds are mad about her. I believe she could take 'em walking-out single-handed!"

To which the brother M.F.H. would probably respond with perfidious warmth: "By Jove!" while, addressing that inner confidant, who always receives the raciest share of any conversation, he would say that he'd be jiggered before he'd let any of his children mess the hounds about with petting and nonsense.

In justice to Lady Isabel, it should be said that she shared the visiting M.F.H.'s view of the position, though regarding it from a different angle.

"Christian, my dearest child," she said, on the day following the Puppy Show that had coincided with Christian's eighth birthday, when, after a long search, she had discovered her youngest daughter, seated, tailor-wise, in one of the kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds. "This is not a not a place for you! You don't know what you may not bring back with you——"

"If you mean fleas, Mother," replied Christian, firmly, "the hounds have none, except what I bring them from Yummie." (Yummie was Lady Isabel's dog, a sickly and much despised spaniel). "The Hounds!" Christian laughed a little; the laugh that is the flower of the root of scorn. Then her eyes softened and glowed. "Darlings!" she murmured, kissing wildly the tan head of the puppy who, but the day before, had been rest from her charge.

CHAPTER III

There are certain persons who are born heralds and genealogists; there are many more to whom these useful gifts have been denied. With apologies to both classes, to the one for sins of omission, to the other in the reverse sense, I find that an excerpt from the Talbot-Lowry pedigree must be inflicted upon them.

With all brevity, let it be stated that Dick Talbot-Lowry possessed a father, General John Richard, and General John Richard had an only sister, Caroline. Caroline, fair and handsome, like all her family, was "married off," as was the custom of her period, at the age of seventeen, to elderly Anthony Coppinger, chiefly for the reason that he was the owner of Coppinger's Court, with a very comfortable rent-roll, and a large demesne, that marched, as to its eastern boundaries, with that of Mount Music, and was, as it happened, divided from it by no more than the Ownashee, that mountain river of which mention has been made. It was, therefore, exceedingly advisable that the existing friendly relations should be cemented, as far as was practicable, and the fair and handsome Caroline was an obvious and suitable adhesive. To Anthony and Caroline, two children were born; Frederica, of whom more hereafter, and Thomas. By those who lay claim to genealogic skill, it will now be apparent that these were the first cousins of Dick Talbot-Lowry. Thomas went into the Indian Army, and in India met and married a very charming young lady, Theresa Quinton, a member of an ancient Catholic family in the North of England, and an ardent daughter of her Church. In India, a son was born to them, and Colonel Tom, who adored his wife, remarking that these things were out of his line, made no objection to her bringing up the son, St. Lawrence Anthony, in her own religion, and hoped that the matter would end there. Mrs. Coppinger, however, remembering St. Paul's injunctions to believing wives and unbelieving husbands, neither stopped nor stayed her prayers and exhortations, until, just before the birth of a second child, she had succeeded in inducing Tom Coppinger—(just "to please her, and for the sake of a quiet life," as he wrote, apologetically, to his relations and friends, far away in Ireland) to join her Communion. She then died, and her baby followed her. Colonel Tom, a very sad and lonely man, came to England and visited St. Lawrence Anthony at the school selected for him by his mother; then he returned to his regiment in India, and was killed, within a year of his wife's death, in a Frontier expedition. He left Larry in the joint guardianship of his sister, Frederica, and his first cousin, Dick Talbot-Lowry, with the request that the former would live with the boy at Coppinger's Court, and that the latter would look after the property until the boy came of age and could do so himself; he also mentioned that he wished his son's education to continue on the lines laid down by his "beloved wife, Theresa."

It must, with regret, be stated, that the relatives and friends in far-away Ireland, instead of admiring "poor Tom's" fidelity to his wife's wishes, murmured together that it was very unfortunate that "poor Theresa" had not died when Larry was born, as, in that case, this "disastrous change of religion" would not have taken place. Taking into consideration the fact that Larry was to live among his Irish cousins, it is possible that from the point of view of expediency, the relations and friends were in some degree justified.

Ireland, it is almost superfluous to observe, has long since decided to call herself The Island of Saints, an assertion akin to the national challenge of trailing the coat-tails, and believers in hereditary might, perhaps, be justified in assuming a strictly celibate sainthood. Be that as it may, Irish people have ever been prone to extremes, and, in spite of the proverb, there are some extremes that never touch, and chief among them are those that concern religion. Religion, or rather, difference of religion, is a factor in every-day Irish life of infinitely more potency than it is, perhaps, in any other Christian country. The profundity of disagreement is such that in most books treating of Ireland, that are not deliberately sectarian, a system of water-tight compartments in such matters is carefully established. It is, no doubt, possible to write of human beings who live in Ireland, without mentioning their religious views, but to do so means a drastic censoring of an integral feature of nearly all mundane affairs. This it is to live in the Island of Saints.

In this humble account of the late Plesiosauridæ and their contemporaries, it is improbable that any saint of any sect will be introduced; one assurance, at least, may be offered without reservation. Those differing Paths, that alike have led many wayfarers to the rest that is promised to the saints, will be treated with an equal reverence and respect. But no rash undertakings can be given as touching the wayfarers, or even their leaders, who may chance to wander through these pages. Neither is any personal responsibility accepted for the views that any of them may express. One does not blame the gramophone if the song is flat, or if the reciter drops his h's.

After this exhaustive exordium it is tranquillising to return to the comparative simplicities of the existence of the young Talbot-Lowrys. Those summer holidays of the year 1894 were made ever memorable for them by the re-inhabiting of Coppinger's Court. Mount Music was a lonely place; it lay on the river, about midway between the towns of Cluhir and Riverstown, either of which meant a five or six mile drive, and to meet such friends and acquaintances as the neighbourhood afforded, was, in winter, a matter confined to the hunting-field, and in summer was restricted, practically, to the incidence of lawn-tennis parties. Possibly the children of Mount Music, thus thrown upon their own resources, developed a habit of amusing themselves that was as advantageous to their caretakers as to their characters. It certainly enhanced very