"No, sir," replied Mat, licking his lips, as the stranger thought, "it
was Kitty Kavanagh brought that; you know you never trust me wid the
vittles--ever since--"

"Yes, I ought to have remembered that notorious fact. There's where your
weakness is strongest, but, indeed, it is only one of them; for he that
would trust you with the carriage of a bottle of whiskey might be said
to commit a great oversight of judgment. With regard to the victuals,
I once put my trust in God, and dispatched you, after a full meal, with
some small relief to a poor family, in the shape of corned beef and
greens, and you know the sequel, that's enough. Be off now, and get the
rings made as I desired you."

He then turned to the stranger, whom he scanned closely; and we need
hardly assure our reader that the other, in his turn, marked the
worthy priest's bearing, manner, and conversation with more than usual
curiosity. The harmless passion in which he found him--his simple but
touching benevolence, added to the genuine benignity with which he
relaxed his anger against Mat Euly, the gigantic servant, because he
told him that he had put a heap upon the creel of turf which he brought
to poor Barney Farrell and his family, not omitting the tears he
represented himself to have shed from Christian sympathy with Widow
Magowran, both of which acts were inventions of the purest water,
resorted to in order to soften the kind-hearted priest; all this, we
say, added to what he had heard from Birney, deeply interested the
stranger in the character of Father Peter. Nor was he less struck by his
appearance. Father MacMahon was a round, tight, rosy-faced little
man, with laughing eyes, full of good nature, and a countenance which
altogether might be termed a title-page to benevolence. His lips were
finely cut, and his well-formed mouth, though full of sweetness, was