Castle Quin, in which the noble but somewhat impoverished Quin family lived nearly throughout the year, was distant, inland, about three miles from the cottage.

Lady Mary had said in her letter to her friend that Mrs.O'Hara was a lady;--and as Mrs.O'Hara had no other neighbour, ranking with herself in that respect, so near her, and none other but the Protestant clergyman's wife within six miles of her, charity, one would have thought, might have induced some of the Quin family to notice her.

But the Quins were Protestant, and Mrs.O'Hara was not only a Roman Catholic, but a Roman Catholic who had been brought into the parish by the priest.

No evil certainly was known of her, but then nothing was known of her; and the Quins were a very cautious people where religion was called in question.

In the days of the famine Father Marty and the Earl and the Protestant vicar had worked together in the good cause;--but those days were now gone by, and the strange intimacy had soon died away.