THE INVITATION.

Squire O'Shanaghgan came home in a couple of days. He entered the
house in noisy fashion, and appeared to be quite cheerful. He had a
great deal to say about Dublin, and talked much of his old friends
during the evening that followed. Nora, however, try as she would,
could never meet his eye, and she guessed, even before he told her,
that his mission had been a failure. It was early the next morning
that he gave her this information.

"I tried them, one and all, colleen," he said, "and never were fellows
more taken aback. 'Is it you to lose your property, O'Shanaghgan?' they
said. They wouldn't believe me at first."

"Well, father, and will they help?" said Nora.

"Bless you, they would if they could. There's not a better-natured
man in the length and breadth of Ireland than Fin O'Hara; and as to
John Fitzgerald, I believe he would take us all into his barrack of
a house; but they can't help with money, Nora, because, bedad, they
haven't got it. A man can't turn stones into money, even for his
best and dearest friends."

"Then what is to be done, father?"

"Oh, I'll manage somehow," said Squire O'Shanaghgan; "and we have
three months all but a week to turn round in. We'll manage by hook
or by crook. Don't you fret your pretty little head. I wouldn't have
a frown on the brow of my colleen for fifty O'Shanaghgans, and