Anty Lynch was not the prettiest, or the youngest girl in Connaught; nor would Martin have affirmed her to be so, unless he had been very much inebriated¹ indeed. However young she might have been once, she was never pretty; but, in all Ireland, there was not a more single-hearted, simpleminded young woman. I do not use the word simple as foolish; for, though uneducated, she was not foolish. But she was unaffected, honest, humble², and true, entertaining a very lowly idea of her own value, and undated by her newly acquired wealth.

She had been so little thought of all her life by others, that she had never learned to think much of herself; she had had but few acquaintances, and no friends, and had spent her life, hitherto, so quietly and silently, that her apparent apathy³ was attributable rather to want of subjects of excitement, than to any sluggishness⁴ of disposition⁵. Her mother had died early; and, since then, the only case in which Anty had been called on to exercise her own judgment⁶, was in refusing to comply with her father’s wish that she should become a nun⁷. On this subject, though often pressed, she had remained positive, always pleading that she felt no call to the sacred duties which would be required, and innocently assuring her father, that, if allowed to remain at home, she would cause him no trouble, and but little expense.

So she had remained at home, and had inured⁸ herself to bear without grumbling⁹, or thinking that she had cause for grumbling, the petulance¹⁰ of her father, and the more cruel harshness and ill-humour of her brother. In all the family schemes of aggrandisement she had been set aside, and Barry had been intended by the father as the

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