XXXIII. The Priest asks for a Loan of Fifty Guineas…

XXXIII. The Priest asks for a Loan of Fifty Guineas

--and Offers “Freney the Robber” as Security.

Whilst Father M'Mahon was wending his way to Constitution Hill from the Brazen Head, where he had deposited his little bundle, containing three shirts, two or three cravats, and as many pairs of stockings, a dialogue was taking place in old Corbet's with which we must make the reader acquainted. He is already aware that Corbet's present wife was his second, and that she had a daughter by her first marriage, who had gone abroad to the East Indies, many years ago, with her husband. This woman was no other than Mrs. M'Bride, wife of the man who had abandoned her for the French girl, as had been mentioned by the stranger to Father M'Mahon, and who had, as was supposed, eloped with her to America. Such certainly was M'Bride's intention, and there is no doubt that the New World would have been edified by the admirable example of these two moralists, were it not for the fact that Mrs. M'Bride, herself as shrewd as the Frenchwoman, and burdened with as little honesty as the husband, had traced them to the place of rendezvous on the very first night of their disappearance; where, whilst they lay overcome with sleep and the influence of the rosy god, she contrived to lessen her husband of the pocketbook which he had helped himself to from his master's escritoire, with the exception, simply, of the papers in question, which, not being money, possessed in her eyes but little value to her. She had read them, however; and as she had through her husband become acquainted with their object, she determined on leaving them in his hands, with a hope that they might become the means of compromising matters with his master, and probably of gaining a reward for their restoration. Unfortunately, however, it so happened, that that gentleman did not miss them until some time after his arrival in Ireland; but, on putting matters together, and comparing the flight of M'Bride with the loss of his property, he concluded, with everything short of certainty, that the latter was the thief.

Old Corbet and this woman were seated in the little back parlor whilst Mrs. Corbet kept the shop, so that their conversation could take a freer range in her absence.

“And so you tell me, Kate,” said the former, “that the vagabond has come back to the country?”

“I seen him with my own eyes,” she replied; “there can be no mistake about it.”

“And he doesn't suspect you of takin' the money from him?”

“No more than he does you; so far from that, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the Frenchwoman he suspects.”

“But hadn't you better call on him? that is, if you know where he lives. Maybe he's sorry for leavin' you.”

“He, the villain! No; you don't know the life he led me. If he was my husband--as unfortunately he is--a thousand times over, a single day I'll never live with him. This lameness, that I'll carry to my grave, is his work. Oh, no; death any time sooner than that.”

“Well,” said the old man, after a lung pause, “it's a strange story you've tould me; and I'm sorry, for Lord Cullamore's sake, to hear it. He's one o' the good ould gentlemen that's now so scarce in the country. But, tell me, do you know where M'Bride lives?”

“No,” she replied, “I do not, neither do I care much; but I'd be glad that his old master had back his papers. There's a woman supposed to be livin' in this country that could prove this stranger's case, and he came over here to find her out if he could.”

“Do you know her name?”

“No; I don't think I ever heard it, or, if I did, I can't at all remember it. M'Bride mentioned the woman, but I don't think he named her.”

“At all events,” replied Corbet, “it doesn't signify. I hope whatever steps they're takin' against that good ould nobleman will fail; and if I had the papers you speak of this minute, I'd put them into the fire. In the mane time try and make out where your vagabone of a husband lives, or, rather, set Ginty to work, as she and you are living together, and no doubt she'll soon ferret him out.”

“I can't understand Ginty at all,” replied the woman. “I think, although she has given up fortune tellin', that her head's not altogether right yet. She talks of workin' out some prophecy that she tould Sir Thomas Gourlay about himself and his daughter.”

“She may talk as much about that as she likes,” replied the old fellow. “She called him plain Thomas Gourlay, didn't she, and said he'd be stripped of his title?”

“So she told me; and that his daughter would be married to Lord Dunroe.”

“Ay, and so she tould myself; but there she's in the dark. The daughter will be Lady Dunroe, no doubt, for they're goin' to be married; but she's takin' a bad way to work out the prophecy against the father by --hem--”

“By what?”

“I'm not free to mention it, Kate; but this very day it's to take place, and. I suppose it'll soon be known to everybody.”

“Well, but sure you might mention it to me.”

“I'll make a bargain with you, then. Set Ginty to work; let her find out your husband; get me the papers you spake of, and I'll tell you all about it.”

“With all my heart, father. I'm sure I don't care if you had them this minute. Let Ginty try her hand, and if she can succeed, well and good.”

“Well, Kate,” said her father, “I'm glad I seen you; but I think it was your duty to call upon me long before this.”

“I would, but that I was afraid you wouldn't see me; and, besides, Ginty told me it was better not for some time. She kept me back, or I would have come months ago.”

“Ay, ay; she has some devil's scheme in view that'll end in either nothing or something. Good-by, now; get me these papers, and I'll tell you what'll be worth hearin'.”

Immediately after her departure Father M'Mahon entered, and found Corbet behind his counter as usual. Each on looking at the other was much struck by his evident appearance for the worse; a circumstance, however, which caused no observation until after they had gone into the little back room. Corbet's countenance, in addition to a careworn look, and a consequent increase of emaciation, presented a very difficult study to the physiognomist, a study not unobserved! by the priest himself. It was indicative of the conflicting resolutions which had for some time past been alternating in his mind; but so roguishly was each resolution veiled by an assumed expression of an opposite I nature, that although the general inference was true, the hypocrisy of the whole face made it individually false. Let us suppose, by way of illustration, that a man whose heart is full of joy successfully puts on a look of grief, and vice versa. Of course, the physiognomist will be mistaken in the conclusions he draws from each individual expression, although correct in perceiving that there are before him the emotions of joy and grief; the only difference being, that dissimulation has put wrong labels upon each emotion.

“Anthony,” said his reverence, after having taken a seat, “I am sorry to see such a change upon you for the worse. You are very much broken down since I saw you last; and although I don't wish to become a messenger of bad news, I feel, that as a clergyman, it is my duty to tell you so.”

“Troth, your reverence,” replied the other, “I'm sorry that so far as bad looks go I must return the compliment. It grieves me: to see you look so ill, sir.”

“I know I look ill,” replied the other; “and I know too that these hints are sent to us in mercy, with a fatherly design on the part of our Creator, that we may make the necessary preparations for the change, the awful change that is before us.”

“Oh, indeed, sir, it's true enough,” replied Corbet, whose visage had become much blanker at this serious intimation, notwithstanding his hypocrisy; “it's true enough, sir; too true, indeed, if we could only remember it as we ought. Have you been unwell, sir?”

“Not in my bodily health, thank God, but I've got into trouble; and what is more, I'm coming to you, Anthony, with a firm I hope that you will bring me out of it.”

“The trouble can't be very great then,” replied the apprehensive old knave, “or I wouldn't be able to do it.”

“Anthony,” said the priest, “I have known you a long time, now forty years at least, and you need not be told that I've stood by some of your friends when they wanted it. When your daughter ran away with that M'Bride, I got him to marry her, a thing he was very unwilling to do; and which I believe, only for me, he would not have done. On that occasion you know I advanced twenty guineas to enable them to begin the world, and to keep the fellow with her; and I did this all for the best, and not without the hope either that you would see me reimbursed for what you ought, as her father, to have given them yourself. I spoke to you once or twice about it, but you lent me the deaf ear, as they call it, and from that day to this you never had either the manliness or the honesty to repay me.”

“Ay,” replied Corbet, with one of his usual grins, “you volunteered to be generous to a profligate, who drank it, and took to the army.”

“Do you then volunteer to be generous to an honest man; I will neither drink It nor take to the army. If he took to the army, he didn't do so without taking your daughter along with him. I spoke to Sir Edward Gourlay, who threatened to write to his colonel; and through the interference of the same humane gentleman I got permission for him to bring his wife along with him. These are circumstances that you ought not to forget, Anthony.”

“I don't forget them, but sure you're always in somebody's affairs; always goin' security for some of your poor parishioners; and then, when they're not able to pay, down comes the responsibility upon you.”

“I cannot see a poor honest man, struggling and industrious, at a loss for a friendly act. No; I never could stand it, so long as I had it in my power to assist him.”

“And what's wrong now, if it's a fair question?”

“Two or three things; none of them very large, but amounting in all to about fifty guineas.”

“Whew!--fifty guineas!”

“Ay, indeed; fifty guineas, which you will lend me on my own security.”

“Fifty guineas to you? Don't I know you? Why, if you had a thousand, let alone fifty, it's among the poor o' the parish they'd be afore a week. Faith, I know you too well Father Peter.”

“You know me, man alive--yes, you do know me; and it is just because you do that I expect you will lend me the money. You wouldn't wish to see my little things pulled about and auctioned; my laughy little library gone; nor would you wish to see me and poor Freney the Robber separated. Big Ruly desaved me, the thief; but I found him out at last. Money I know is a great temptation, and so is mate when trusted to a shark like him; but any way, may the Lord pardon the blackguard! and that's the worst I wish him.”

There are some situations in life where conscience is more awakened by comparison, or perhaps we should say by the force of contrast, than by all the power of reason, religion, or philosophy, put together, and advancing against it in their proudest pomp and formality. The childlike simplicity, for instance, of this good and benevolent man, earnest and eccentric as it was, occasioned reflections more painful and touching to the callous but timid heart of this old manoeuvrer than could whole homilies, or the most serious and lengthened exhortations.

“I am near death,” thought he, as he looked upon the countenance of the priest, from which there now beamed an emanation of regret, not for his difficulties, for he had forgotten them, but for his knavish servant--so simple, so natural, so affecting, so benevolent, that Corbet was deeply struck by them. “I am near death,” he proceeded, “and what would I not give to have within me a heart so pure and free from villany as that man. He has made me feel more by thinkin' of what goodness and piety can do, than I ever felt in my life; and now if he gets upon Freney the Robber, or lugs in that giant Ruly, he'll forget debts, difficulties, and all for the time. Heavenly Father, that I had as happy a heart this day, and as free from sin!”

“Anthony,” said the priest, “I must tell you about Freney--”

“No, sir, if you plaise,” replied the other, “not now.”

“Well, about poor Mat Ruly; do you know that I think by taking him back I might be able to reclaim him yet. The Lord has gifted him largely in one way, I admit; but still--”

“But still your bacon and greens would pay for it. I know it all, and who doesn't? But about your own affairs?”

“In truth, they are in a bad state--the same bacon and greens--he has not left me much of either; he made clean work of them, at any rate, before he went.”

“But about your affairs, I'm sayin'?”

“Why, they can't be worse; I'm run to the last pass; and Freney now, the crature, when the saddle's on him, comes to the mounting-stone of himself, and waits there till I'm ready. Then,” he added, with a deep sigh, “to think of parting with him! And I must do it--I must;” and here the tears rose to his eyes so copiously that he was obliged to take out his cotton handkerchief and wipe them away.

The heart of the old miser was touched. He knew not why, it is true, but he felt that the view he got of one immortal spirit uncorrupted by the crimes and calculating hypocrisy of life, made the contemplation of his own state and condition, as well as of his future hopes, fearful.

“What would I not give,” thought he, “to have a soul as free from sin and guilt, and to be as fit to face my God as that man? And yet they say it can be brought about. Well, wait--wait till I have my revenge on this black villain, and I'll see what may be done. Ay, let what will happen, the shame and ruin of my child must be revenged. And yet, God help me, what am I sayin'? Would this good man say that? He that forgives every one and everything. Still, I'll repent in the long run. Come, Father Peter,” said he, “don't be cast down; I'll thry what I can for you; but then, again, if I do, what security can you give me?”

“Poor Freney the Robber--”

“Well, now, do you hear this!”

“--Was a name I gave him on account of--”

“Troth, I'll put on my hat and lave you here, if you don't spake out about what you came for. How much is it you say you want?”

The good man, who was startled out of his affection for Freney by the tone of Corbet's voice more than by his words, now raised his head, and looked about him somewhat like a person restored to consciousness.

“Yes, Anthony,” said he; “yes, man alive; there's kindness in that.”

“In what, sir?”

“In the very tones of your voice, I say. God has touched your heart, I hope. But oh, Anthony, if it were His blessed will to soften it--to teach it to feel true contrition and repentance, and to fill it with love for His divine will in all things, and for your fellow-creatures, too--how little would I think of my own miserable difficulties! Father of all mercy! if I could be sure that I had gained even but one soul to heaven, I would say that I had not been born and lived in vain!”

“He'll never let me do it,” thought Corbet, vexed, and still more softened by the piety, the charity, and the complete forgetfulness of self, which the priest's conduct manifested. Yet was this change not brought about without difficulty, and those pitiful misgivings and calculations which assail and re-assail a heart that has been for a long time under the influence of the world and those base principles by which it is actuated. In fact, this close, nervous, and penurious old man felt, when about to perform this generous action, all that alarm and hesitation which a virtuous man would feel when on the eve of committing a crime. He was about to make an inroad upon his own system--going to change the settled habits of his whole life, and, for a moment, he entertained thoughts of altering his purpose. Then he began to think that this visit of the priest might have been a merciful and providential one; he next took a glimpse at futurity--reflected for a moment on his unprepared state, and then decided to assist the priest now, and consider the necessity for repentance as soon as he felt it convenient to do so afterwards.

How strange and deceptive, and how full of the subtlest delusions, are the workings of the human heart!

“And now, Anthony,” proceeded the priest, “while I think of it, let me speak to you on another affair.”

“I see, sir,” replied Corbet, somewhat querulously, “that you're determined to prevent me from sarvin' you. If my mind changes, I won't do it; so stick to your own business first. I know very well what you're goin' to spake about. How much do you want, you say?”

“Fifty guineas. I'm responsible for three bills to that amount. The bills are not for myself, but for three honest families that have been brought low by two of the worst enemies that ever Ireland had--bad landlords and bad times.”

“Well, then, I'll give you the money.”

“God bless you, Anthony!” exclaimed the good man, “God bless you! and above all things may He enable you and all of us to prepare for the life that is before us.”

Anthony paused a moment, and looked with a face of deep perplexity at the priest.

“Why am I doin' this,” said he, half repentant of the act, “and me can't afford it? You must give me your bill, sir, at three months, and I'll charge you interest besides.”

“I'll give you my bill, certainly,” replied the priest, “and you may charge interest too; but be moderate.”

Corbet then went upstairs, much at that pace which characterizes the progress of a felon from the press-room to the gallows; here he remained for some time--reckoning the money--paused on the stairhead--and again the slow, heavy, lingering step was heard descending, and, as nearly as one could judge, with as much reluctance as that with which it went up. He then sat down and looked steadily, but with a good deal of abstraction, at the priest, after having first placed the money on his own side of the table.

“Have you a blank bill?” asked the priest.

“Eh?”

“Have you got a blank bill? or, sure we can send out for one.”

“For what?”

“For a blank bill.”

“A blank bill--yes--oh, ay--fifty guineas!--why, that's half a hundre'. God protect me! what am I about? Well, well; there--there--there; now put it in your pocket;” and as he spoke he shoved it over hastily to the priest, as if he feared his good resolution might fail him at last.

“But about the bill, man alive?”

“Hang the bill--deuce take all the bills that ever were drawn! I'm the greatest ould fool that ever wore a head--to go to allow myself to be made a--a--. Take your money away out of this, I bid you--your money--no, but my money. I suppose I may bid farewell to it--for so long as any one tells you a story of distress, and makes a poor mouth to you, so long you'll get yourself into a scrape on their account.”

The priest had already put the money in his pocket, but he instantly took it out, and placed it once more on Corbet's side of the table.

“There,” said he, “keep it. I will receive no money that is lent in such a churlish and unchristian spirit. And I tell you now, moreover, that if I do accept it, it must be on the condition of your listening to what I feel it my duty to say to you. You, Anthony Corbet, have committed a black and deadly crime against the bereaved widow, against society, against the will of a merciful and--take care that you don't find him, too--a just God. It is quite useless for you to deny it; I have spoken the truth, and you know it. Why will you not enable that heart-broken and kind lady--whose whole life is one perpetual good action--to trace and get back her son?”

“I can't do it.”

“That's a deliberate falsehood, sir. Your conscience tells you it's a he. In your last conversation with me, at the Brazen Head, you as good as promised to do something of the kind in a couple of months. That time and more has now passed, and yet you have done nothing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Don't I know that the widow has got no trace of her child? And right well I know that you could restore him to her if you wished. However, I leave you now to the comfort of your own hardened and wicked heart. The day will come soon when the black catalogue of your own guilt will rise up fearfully before you--when a death-bed, with all its horrors, will startle the very soul within you by its fiery recollections. It is then, my friend, that you will feel--when it is too late--what it is to have tampered with and despised the mercy of God, and have neglected, while you had time, to prepare yourself for His awful judgment. Oh, what would I not do to turn your heart from the dark spirit of revenge that broods in it, and changes you into a demon! Mark these words, Anthony. They are spoken, God knows, with an anxious and earnest wish for your repentance, and, if neglected, they will rise and sound the terrible sentence of your condemnation at the last awful hour. Listen to them, then--listen to them in time, I entreat, I beseech you--I would go on my bare knees to you to do so.” Here his tears fell fast, as he proceeded, “I would; and, believe me, I have thought of you and prayed for you, and now you see that I cannot but weep for you, when I know that you have the knowledge--perhaps the guilt of this heinous crime locked up in your heart, and will not reveal it. Have compassion, then, on the widow--enable her friends to restore her child to her longing arms; purge yourself of this great guilt, and you may believe me, that even in a temporal point of view it will be the best rewarded action you ever performed; but this is little--the darkness that is over your heart will disappear, your conscience will become light, and all its reflections sweet and full of heavenly comfort; your death-bed will be one of peace, and hope, and joy. Restore, then, the widow's son, and forbear your deadly revenge against that wretched baronet, and God will restore you to a happiness that the world can neither give nor take away.”

Corbet's cheek became pale as death itself whilst the good man spoke, but no other symptom of emotion was perceptible; unless, indeed, that his hands, as he unconsciously played with the money, were quite tremulous.

The priest, having concluded, rose to depart, having completely forgotten the principal object of his visit.

“Where are you going?” said Corbet, “won't you take the money with you?”

“That depends upon your reply,” returned the priest; “and I entreat you to let me have a favorable one.”

“One part of what you wish I will do,” he replied; “the other is out of my power at present. I am not able to do it yet.”

“I don't properly understand you,” said the other; “or rather, I don't understand you at all. Do you mean what you have just said to be favorable or otherwise?”

“I have come to a resolution,” replied Corbet, “and time will tell whether it's in your favor or not. You must be content with this, for more I will not say now; I cannot. There's your money, but I'll take no bill from you. Your promise is sufficient--only say you will pay me?”

“I will pay you, if God spares me life.”

“That is enough; unless, indeed “--again pausing.

“Satisfy yourself,” said the priest; “I will give you either my bill or note of hand.”

“No, no; I tell you. I am satisfied. Leave everything to time.”

“That may do very well, but it does not apply to eternity, Anthony. In the meantime I thank you; for I admit you have taken me out of a very distressing difficulty. Good-by--God bless you; and, above all things, don't forget the words I have spoken to you.”

“Now,” said Corbet, after the priest had gone, “something must be done; I can't stand this state of mind long, and if death should come on me before I've made my peace with God--but then, the black villain!--come or go what may, he must be punished, and Ginty's and Tom's schemes must be broken. That vagabone, too! I can't forget the abuse he gave me in the watch-house; however, I'll set the good act against the bad one, and who knows but the one may wipe out the other? I suppose the promisin' youth has seen his father, and thinks himself the welcome heir of his title and property by this; and the father too--but wait, if I don't dash that cup from his lips, and put one to it filled with gall, I'm not here; and then when it's done, I'll take to religion for the remainder of my life.”

What old Corbet said was, indeed, true enough; and this brings us to the interview between Mr. Ambrose Gray, his parent, and his sister.

There is nothing which so truly and often so severely tests the state of man's heart, or so painfully disturbs the whole frame of his moral being as the occurrence of some important event that is fraught with happiness. Such an event resembles the presence of a good man among a set of profligates, causing them to feel the superiority of virtue over vice, and imposing a disagreeable restraint, not only upon their actions, but their very thoughts. When the baronet, for instance, went from his bedroom to the library, he experienced the full force of this observation. A disagreeable tumult prevailed within him. It is true, he felt, as every parent must feel, to a greater or less extent delighted at the contemplation of his son's restoration to him. But, at the same time, the tenor of his past life rose up in painful array before him, and occasioned reflections that disturbed him deeply. Should this young man prove, on examination, to resemble his sister in her views of moral life in general--should he find him as delicately virtuous, and animated by the same pure sense of honor, he felt that his recovery would disturb the future habits of his life, and take away much of the gratification which he expected from his society. These considerations, we say, rendered him so anxious and uneasy, that he actually wished to find him something not very far removed from a profligate. He hoped that he might be inspired with his own views of society and men, and that he would now have some one to countenance him in all his selfish designs and projects.

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XXXIV. Young Gourlay's Affectionate Interview with His Father

--Risk of Strangulation--Movements of M'Bride.

It is not necessary here to suggest to the reader that Tom Corbet, who knew the baronet's secrets and habits of life so thoroughly, had prepared Mr. Ambrose Gray, by frequent rehearsals, for the more adroit performance of the task that was before him.

At length a knock, modest but yet indicative of something like authority, was heard at the hall-door, and the baronet immediately descended to the dining-room, where he knew he could see his son with less risk of interruption. He had already intimated to Lucy that she should not make her appearance until summoned for that purpose.

At length Mr. Gray was shown into the dining-room, and the baronet, who, as usual, was pacing it to and fro, suddenly turned round, and without any motion to approach his son, who stood with a dutiful look, as if to await his will, he fixed his eyes upon him with a long, steady, and scrutinizing gaze. There they stood, contemplating each other with earnestness, and so striking, so extraordinary was the similarity between their respective features, that, in everything but years, they appeared more like two counterparts than father and son. Each, on looking at the other, felt, in fact, the truth of this unusual resemblance, and the baronet at once acknowledged its influence.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, approaching Mr. Gray, “yes, there is no mistake here; he is my son. I acknowledge him.” He extended his hand, and shook that of the other, then seized both with a good deal of warmth, and welcomed him. Ambrose, however, was not satisfied with this, but, extricating his hands, he threw his arms round the baronet's neck, and exclaimed in the words of an old play, in which he had been studying a similar scene for the present occasion, “My father! my dear father! Oh, and have I a father! Oh, let me press him to my heart!” And as he spoke he contrived to execute half a dozen dry sobs (for he could not accomplish the tears), that would have done credit to the best actor of the day.

The baronet, who never relished any exhibition of emotion or tenderness, began to have misgivings as to his character, and consequently suffered these dutiful embraces instead of returning them.

“There, Tom,” he exclaimed, laughing, “that will do. There, man,” he repeated, for he felt that Tom was about recommencing another rather vigorous attack, whilst the sobs were deafening, “there, I say; don't throttle me; that will do, sirrah; there now. On this occasion it is natural; but in general I detest snivelling--it's unmanly.”

Tom at once took the hint, wiped his eyes, a work in this instance of the purest supererogation, and replied, “So do I, father; it's decidedly the province of an old woman when she is past everything else. But on such an occasion I should be either more or less than man not to feel as I ought.”

“Come, that is very well said. I hope you are not a fool like your--Corbet, go out. I shall send for you when we want you. I hope,” he repeated, after Corbet had disappeared, “I hope you are not a fool, like your sister. Not that I can call her a fool, either; but she is obstinate and self-willed.”

“I am sorry to hear this, sir. My sister ought to have no will but yours.”

“Why, that is better,” replied the baronet, rubbing his hands cheerfully. “Hang it, how like?” he exclaimed, looking at him once more. “You resemble me confoundedly, Tom--at least in person; and if you do in mind and purpose, we'll harmonize perfectly. Well, then, I have a thousand questions to ask you, but I will have time enough for that again; in the meantime, Tom, what's your opinion of life--of the world--of man, Tom, and of woman? I wish to know what kind of stuff you're made of.”

“Of life, sir--why, that we are to take the most we can out of it. Of the world--that I despise it. Of man--that every one is a rogue when he's found out, and that if he suffers himself to be found out he's a fool; so that the fools and the rogues have it between them.”

“And where do you leave the honest men, Tom?”

“The what, sir?”

“The honest men.”

“I'm not acquainted, sir, nor have I ever met a man who was, with any animal of that class. The world, sir, is a moral fiction; a mere term in language that represents negation.”

“Well, but woman?”

“Born to administer to our pleasure, our interest, or our ambition, with no other purpose in life. Have I answered my catechism like a good boy, sir?”

“Very well, indeed, Tom. Why, in your notions of life and the world, you seem to be quite an adept.”

“I am glad, sir, that you approve of them. So far we are likely to agree. I feel quite proud, sir, that my sentiments are in unison with yours. But where is my sister, sir? I am quite impatient to see her.”

“I will send for her immediately. And now that I have an opportunity, let me guard you against her influence. I am anxious to bring about a marriage between her and a young nobleman--Lord Dunroe--who will soon be the Earl of Cullamore, for his old father is dying, or near it, and then Lucy will be a countess. To effect this has been the great ambition of my life. Now, you must not only prevent Lucy from gaining you over to her interests, for she would nearly as soon die as marry him.”

“Pshaw!”

“What do you pshaw for, Tom?”

“All nonsense, sir. She doesn't know her own mind; or, rather, she ought to have no mind on the subject.”

“Perfectly right; my identical sentiments. Lucy, however, detests this lord, notwithstanding--ay, worse than she does the deuce himself. You must, therefore, not permit yourself to be changed or swayed by her influence, but support me by every argument and means in your power.”

“Don't fear me, sir. Your interests, or rather the girl's own, if she only knows them, shall have my most strenuous support.”

“Thank you, Tom. I see that you and I are likely to agree thoroughly. I shall now send for her. She is a superb creature, and less than a countess I shall not have her.”

Lucy, when the servant announced her father's wish to see her, was engaged in picturing to herself the subject of her brother's personal appearance. She had always heard that he resembled her mother, and on this account alone she felt how very dear he should be to her. With a flushing, joyful, but palpitating heart, she descended the stairs, and with a trembling hand knocked at the door. On entering, she was about to rush into her newly-found relative's arms, but, on casting her eyes around, she perceived her father and him standing side by side, so startlingly alike in feature, expression, and personal figure, that her heart, until then bounding with rapture, sank at once, and almost became still. The quick but delicate instincts of her nature took the alarm, and a sudden weakness seized her whole frame. “In this young man,” she said to herself, “I have found a brother, but not a friend; not a feature of my dear mother in that face.”

This change, and this rush of reflection, took place almost in a moment, and ere she had time to speak she found herself in Mr. Ambrose Gray's arms. The tears at once rushed to her eyes, but they were not such tears as she expected to have shed. Joy there was, but, alas, how much mitigated was its fervency! And when her brother spoke, the strong, deep, harsh tones of his voice so completely startled her, that she almost believed she was on the breast of her father. Her tears flowed; but they were mingled with a sense of disappointment that amounted almost to bitterness.

Tom on this occasion forebore to enact the rehearsal scene, as he had done in the case of his father. His sister's beauty, at once melancholy but commanding, her wonderful grace, her dignity of manner, added to the influence of her tall, elegant figure, awed him so completely, that he felt himself incapable of aiming at anything like dramatic effect. Nay, as her warm tears fell upon his face, he experienced a softening influence that resembled emotion, but, like his father, he annexed associations to it that were selfish, and full of low, ungenerous caution.

“My father's right,” thought he; “I must be both cool and firm here, otherwise it will be difficult not to support her.”

“Well, Lucy,” said her father, with unusual cheerfulness, after Tom had handed her to a seat, “I hope you like your brother. Is he not a fine, manly young fellow?”

“Is he not my brother, papa?” she replied, “restored to us after so many years; restored when hope had deserted us--when we had given him up for lost.”

As she uttered the words her voice quivered; a generous reaction had taken place in her breast; she blamed herself for having withheld from him, on account of a circumstance over which he had no control, that fulness of affection, with which she had prepared herself to welcome him. A sentiment, first of compassion, then of self-reproach, and ultimately of awakened affection, arose in her mind, associated with and made still more tender by the melancholy memory of her departed mother. She again took his hand, on which the tears now fell in showers, and after a slight pause said,

“I hope, my dear Thomas, you have not suffered, nor been subject to the wants and privations which usually attend the path of the young and friendless in this unhappy world? Alas, there is one voice--but is now forever still--that would, oh, how rapturously! have welcomed you to a longing and a loving heart.”

The noble sincerity of her present emotion was not without its effect upon her brother. His eyes, in spite of the hardness of his nature, swam in something like moisture, and he gazed upon her with wonder and pride, that he actually was the brother of so divine a creature; and a certain description of affection, such as he had never before felt, for it was pure, warm, and unselfish.

“Oh, how I do long to hear the history of your past life!” she exclaimed. “I dare say you had many an early struggle to encounter; many a privation to suffer; and in sickness, with none but the cold hand of the stranger about you; but still it seems that God has not deserted you. Is it not a consolation, papa, to think that he returns to us in a condition of life so gratifying?”

“Gratifying it unquestionably is, Lucy. He is well educated; and will soon be fit to take his proper position in society.”

“Soon! I trust immediately, papa; I hope you will not allow him to remain a moment longer in obscurity; compensate him at least for his sufferings. But, my dear Thomas,” she proceeded, turning to him, “let me ask, do you remember mamma? If she were now here, how her affectionate heart would rejoice! Do you remember her my dear Thomas?”

“Not distinctly,” he replied; “something of a pale, handsome woman comes occasionally like a dream of my childhood to my imagination--a graceful woman, with auburn hair, and a melancholy look, I think.”

“You--do,” replied Lucy, as her eyes sparkled, “you do remember her; that is exactly a sketch of her--gentle, benignant, and affectionate, with a fixed sorrow mingled with resignation in her face. Yes, you remember her!”

“Now, Lucy,” said her father, who never could bear any particular allusion to his wife; “now that you have seen your brother, I think you may withdraw, at least for the present. He and I have matters of importance to talk of; and you know you will have enough of him again--plenty of time to hear his past history, which, by the way, I am as anxious to hear as you are. You may now withdraw, my love.”

“Oh, not so soon, father, if you please,” said Thomas; “allow us a little more time together.”

“Well, then, a few minutes only, for I myself must take an airing in the carriage, and I must also call upon old Cullamore.”

“Papa,” said Lucy, “I am about to disclose a little secret to you which I hesitated to do before, but this certainly is a proper occasion for doing it; the secret I speak of will disclose itself. Here is where it lay both day and night since mamma's death,” she added, putting her hand upon her heart; “it is a miniature portrait of her which I myself got done.”

She immediately drew it up by a black silk ribbon, and after contemplating it with tears, she placed it in the hands of her brother.

This act of Lucy's placed him in a position of great pain and embarrassment. His pretended recollection of Lady Gourlay was, as the reader already guesses, nothing more than the description of her which he had received from Corbet, that he might be able to play his part with an appearance of more natural effect. With the baronet, the task of deception was by no means difficult; but with Lucy, the case was altogether one of a different complexion. His father's principles, as expounded by his illegitimate son's worthy uncle, were not only almost familiar to him, but also in complete accordance with his own. With him, therefore, the deception consisted in little else than keeping his own secret, and satisfying his father that their moral views of life were the same. He was not prepared, however, for the effect which Lucy's noble qualities produced upon him so soon. To him who had never met with or known any other female, combining in her own person such extraordinary beauty and dignity--such obvious candor of heart--such graceful and irresistible simplicity, or who was encompassed by an atmosphere of such truth and purity--the effect was such as absolutely confounded himself, and taught him to feel how far they go in purifying, elevating, and refining those who come within the sphere of their influence. This young man, for instance, was touched, softened, and awed into such an involuntary respect for her character and virtues, that he felt himself almost unable to sustain the part he had undertaken to play, so far at least as she was concerned. In fact, he felt himself changed for the better, and was forced, as it were, to look in upon his own heart, and contemplate its deformity by the light that emanated from her character. Nor was this singular but natural influence unperceived by her father, who began to fear that if they were to be much together, he must ultimately lose the connivance and support of his son.

Thomas took the portrait from her hand, and, after contemplating it for some time, felt himself bound to kiss it, which he did, with a momentary consciousness of his hypocrisy that felt like guilt.

“It is most interesting,” said he; “there is goodness, indeed, and benignity, as you say, in every line of that placid but sorrowful face. Here,” said he, “take it back, my dear sister; I feel that it is painful to me to look upon it.”

“It has been my secret companion,” said Lucy, gazing at it with deep emotion, “and my silent monitress ever since poor mamma's death. It seemed to say to me with those sweet lips that will never more move: Be patient, my child, and put your firm trust in the hopes of a better life, for this world is one of trial and suffering.”

“That is all very fine, Lucy,” said her father, somewhat fretfully; “but it would have been as well if she had preached a lesson of obedience at the same time. However, you had better withdraw, my dear; as I told you, Thomas and I have many important matters to talk over.”

“I am ready to go, papa,” she replied; “but, by the way, my dear Thomas, I had always heard that you resembled her very much; instead of that, you are papa's very image.”

“A circumstance which will take from his favor with you, Lucy, I fear,” observed her father; “but, indeed, I myself am surprised at the change that has come over you, Thomas; for, unquestionably, when young you were very like her.”

“These changes are not at all unfrequent, I believe,” replied his son. “I have myself known instances where the individual when young resembled one parent, and yet, in the course of time, became as it were the very image and reflex of the other.”

“You are perfectly right, Tom,” said his father; “every family is aware of the fact, and you yourself are a remarkable illustration of it.”

“I am not sorry for resembling my dear father, Lucy,” observed her brother; “and I know I shall lose nothing in your good will on that account, but rather gain by it.”

Lucy's eyes were already filled with tears at the ungenerous and unfeeling insinuation of her father.

“You shall not, indeed, Thomas,” she replied; “and you, papa, are scarcely just to me in saying so. I judge no person by their external appearance, nor do I suffer myself to be prejudiced by looks, although I grant that the face is very often, but by no means always, an index to the character. I judge my friends by my experience of their conduct--by their heart--their principles--their honor. Good-by, now, my dear brother; I am quite impatient to hear your history, and I am sure you will gratify me as soon as you can.”

She took his hand and kissed it, but, in the act of doing so, observed under every nail a semicircular line of black drift that jarred very painfully on her feelings. Tom then imprinted a kiss upon her forehead, and she withdrew.

When she had gone out, the baronet bent his eyes upon her brother with a look that seemed to enter into his very soul--a look which his son, from his frequent teachings, very well understood.

“Now, Tom,” said he, “that you have seen your sister, what do you think of her? Is it not a pity that she should ever move under the rank of a countess?”

“Under the rank of a queen, sir. She would grace the throne of an empress.”

“And yet she has all the simplicity of a child; but I can't get her to feel ambition. Now, mark me, Tom; I have seen enough in this short interview to convince me that if you are not as firm as a rock, she will gain you over.”

“Impossible, sir; I love her too well to lend myself to her prejudices against her interests. Her objections to this marriage must proceed solely from inexperience. It is true, Lord Dunroe bears a very indifferent character, and if you could get any other nobleman with a better one as a husband for her, it would certainly be more agreeable.”

“It might, Tom; but I cannot. The truth is, I am an unpopular man among even the fashionable circles, and the consequence is, that I do not mingle much with them. The disappearance of my brother's heir has attached suspicions to me which your discovery will not tend to remove. Then there is Lucy's approaching marriage, which your turning up at this particular juncture may upset. Dunroe, I am aware, is incapable of appreciating such a girl as Lucy.”

“Then why, sir, does he marry her?”

“In consequence of her property. You perceive, then, that unless you lie by until after this marriage, my whole schemes for this girl may be destroyed.”

“But how, sir, could my appearance or reappearance effect such a catastrophe?”

“Simply because you come at the most unlucky moment.”

“Unlucky, sir!” exclaimed the youth, with much affected astonishment, for he had now relapsed into his original character, and felt himself completely in his element.

“Don't misunderstand me,” said his father; “I will explain myself. Had you never appeared, Lucy would have inherited the family estates, which, in right of his wife, would have passed into the possession of Dunroe. Your appearance, however, if made known, will prevent that, and probably cause Dunroe to get out of it; and it is for this reason that I wish to keep your very existence a secret until the marriage is over.”

“I am willing to do anything, sir,” replied worthy Tom, with a very dutiful face, “anything to oblige you, and to fall in with your purposes, provided my own rights are not compromised. I trust you will not blame me, sir, for looking to them, and for a natural anxiety to sustain the honor and prolong the name of my family.”

“Blame you, sirrah!” said his father, laughing. “Confound me, but you're a trump, and I am proud to hear you express such sentiments. How the deuce did you get such a shrewd notion of the world? But, no matter, attend to me. Your rights shall not be compromised. A clause shall be inserted in the marriage articles to the effect that in case of your recovery and restoration, the estates shall revert to you, as the legitimate heir. Are you satisfied?”

“Perfectly, sir,” replied Thomas, “perfectly; on the understanding that these provisions are duly and properly carried out.”

“Undoubtedly they shall; and besides,” replied his father with a grin of triumph, “it will be only giving Dunroe a quid pro quo, for, as I told you, he is marrying your sister merely for the property, out of which you cut him.”

“Of course, my dear father,” replied the other, “I am in your hands; but, in the meantime, how and where am I to dispose of myself?”

“In the first place, keep your own secret--that is the principal point--in which case you may live wherever you wish; I will give you a liberal allowance until you can make your appearance with safety to Lucy's prosperity. The marriage will take place very soon; after which you can come and claim your own, when it will be too late for Dunroe to retract. Here, for the present, is a check for two hundred and fifty; but, Tom, you must be frugal and cautious in its expenditure. Don't suffer yourself to break out: always keep a firm hold of the helm. Get a book in which you will mark down your expenses; for, mark me, you must render a strict account of this money. On the day after to-morrow you must dine with Lucy and me; but, if you take my advice, you will see her as seldom as possible until after her marriage. She wishes me to release her from her engagement, and she will attempt to seduce you to her side; but I warn you that this would be a useless step for you to take, as my mind is immovable on the subject.”

They then separated, each, but especially Mr. Ambrose Gray, as we must again call him, feeling very well satisfied with the result of the interview.

“Now,” said the baronet, as he paced the floor, after his son had gone, “am I not right, after all, in the views which I entertain of life? I have sometimes been induced to fear that Providence has placed in human society a moral machinery which acts with retributive effect upon those who, in the practice of their lives, depart from what are considered his laws. And yet here am I, whose whole life has been at variance with and disregarded them--here I am, I say, with an easier heart than I've had for many a day: my son restored to me--my daughter upon the point of being married according to my highest wishes--all my projects prospering; and there is my brother's wife--wretched Lady Gourlay--who, forsooth, is religious, benevolent, humane, and charitable--ay, and if report speak true, who loves her fellow-creatures as much as I scorn and detest them. Yes--and what is the upshot? Why, that all these virtues have not made her one whit happier than another, nor so happy as one in ten thousand. Cui bono, then I ask--where is this moral machinery which I sometimes dreaded? I cannot perceive its operations. It has no existence; it is a mere chimera; like many another bugbear, the foul offspring of credulity and fear on the one side--of superstition and hypocrisy on the other. No; life is merely a thing of chances, and its incidents the mere combinations that result from its evolutions, just like the bits of glass in the kaleidoscope, which, when viewed naked, have neither order nor beauty, but when seen through our own mistaken impressions, appear to have properties which they do not possess, and to produce results that are deceptive, and which would mislead us if we drew any absolute inference from them. Here the priest advances, kaleidoscope in hand, and desires you to look at his tinsel and observe its order. Well, you do so, and imagine that the beauty and order you see lie in the things themselves, and not in the prism through which you view them. But you are not satisfied--you must examine. You take the kaleidoscope to pieces, and where then are the order and beauty to be found? Away! I am right still. The doctrine of life is a doctrine of chances; and there is nothing certain but death--death, the gloomy and terrible uncreator--heigho!”

Whilst the unbelieving baronet was congratulating himself upon the truth of his principles and the success of his plans, matters were about to take place that were soon to subject them to a still more efficient test than the accommodating but deceptive spirit of his own scepticism. Lord Cullamore's mind was gradually sinking under some secret sorrow or calamity, which he refused to disclose even to his son or Lady Emily. M'Bride's visit had produced a most melancholy effect upon him; indeed, so deeply was he weighed down by it, that he was almost incapable of seeing any one, with the exception of his daughter, whom he caressed and wept over as one would over some beloved being whom death was about to snatch from the heart and eyes forever.

Sir Thomas Gourlay, since the discovery of his son, called every day for a week, but the reply was, “His lordship is unable to see any one.”

One evening, about that time, Ginty Cooper had been to see her brother, Tom Corbet, at the baronet's, and was on her way home, when she accidentally spied M'Bride in conversation with Norton, at Lord Cullamore's hall-door, which, on her way to Sir Thomas's, she necessarily passed. It was just about dusk, or, as they call it in the country, between the two lights, and as the darkness was every moment deepening, she resolved to watch them, for the purpose of tracing M'Bride home to his lodgings. They, in the meantime, proceeded to a public-house in the vicinity, into which both entered, and having ensconced themselves in a little back closet off the common tap-room, took their seats at a small round table, Norton having previously ordered some punch. Giuty felt rather disappointed at this caution, but in a few minutes a red-faced girl, with a blowzy head of hair strong as wire, and crisped into small obstinate undulations of surface which neither comb nor coaxing could smooth away, soon followed them with the punch and a candle. By the light of the latter, Ginty perceived that there was nothing between them but a thin partition of boards, through the slits of which she could, by applying her eye or ear, as the case might be, both see and hear them. The tap-room at the time was empty, and Ginty, lest her voice might be heard, went to the bar, from whence she herself brought in a glass of porter, and having taken her seat close to the partition, overheard the following conversation:

“In half an hour he's to see you, then?” said Norton, repeating the words with a face of inquiry.

“Yes, sir; in half an hour.”

“Well, now,” he continued, “I assure you I'm neither curious nor inquisitive; yet, unless it be a very profound secret indeed, I give my honor I should wish to hear it.”

“There's others in your family would be glad to hear it as well as you,” replied M'Bride.

“The earl has seen you once or twice before on the subject, I think?”

“He has, sir?”

“And this is the third time, I believe?”

“It will be the third time, at all events.”

“Come, man,” said Norton, “take your punch; put yourself in spirits for the interview. It requires a man to pluck up to be able to speak to a nobleman.”

“I have spoken to as good as ever he was; not that I say anything to his lordship's disparagement,” replied M'Bride; “but I'll take the punch for a better reason--because I I have a fellow feeling for it. And yet it was my destruction, too; however, it can't be helped. Yes, faith, it made me an ungrateful scoundrel; but, no matter!--sir, here's your health! I must only, as they say, make the best of a bad bargain--must bring my cattle to the best market.”

“Ay,” said Norton, dryly and significantly; “and so you think the old earl, the respectable old nobleman, is your best chapman? Am I right?”

“I may go that far, any way,” replied the fellow, with a knowing grin; “but I don't lave you much the wiser.”

“No, faith, you don't,” replied Norton, grinning in his turn. “However, listen to me. Do you not think, now, that if you placed your case in the hands of some one that stands well with his lordship, and who could use his influence in your behalf, you might have better success?”

“I'm the best judge of that myself,” replied M'Bride. “As it is, I have, or can have, two strings to my bow. I have only to go to a certain person, and say I'm sorry for what I've done, and I've no doubt but I'd come well off.”

“Well, and why don't you? If I were in your case, I'd consider myself first, though.”

“I don't know,” replied the other, as if undecided. “I think, afther all, I'm in better hands. Unless Lord Cullamore is doting, I'm sure of that fact. I don't intend to remain in this counthry. I'll go back to France or to America; I can't yet say which.”

“Take your punch in the meantime; take off your liquor, I say, and it'll clear your head. Come, off with it. I don't know why, but I have taken a fancy to you. Your face is an honest one, and if I knew what your business with his lordship is, I'd give you a lift.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied the other; “but the truth is, I'm afeard to take much till after I see him. I must have all my wits about me, and keep myself steady.”

“Do put it in my power to serve you. Tell me what your business is, and, by the honor of my name, I'll assist you.”

“At present,” replied M'Bride, “I can't; but if I could meet you after I see his lordship, I don't say but we might talk more about it.”

“Very well,” replied Norton; “you won't regret it. In the course of a short time I shall have the complete management of the whole Cullamore property; and who can say that, if you put confidence in me now, I may not have it in my power to employ you beneficially for yourself?”

“Come then, sir,” replied M'Bride, “let me have another tumbler, on the head of it. I think one more will do me no harm; as you say, sir, it'll clear my head.”

This was accordingly produced, and M'Bride began to become, if not more communicative, at least more loquacious, and seemed disposed to place confidence in Norton, to whom, however, he communicated nothing of substantial importance.

“I think,” said the latter, “if I don't mistake, that I am acquainted with some of your relations.”

“That may easily be,” replied the other; “and it has struck me two or three times that I have seen your face before, but I can't tell where.”

“Very likely,” replied Norton; “but 111 tell you what, we must get better acquainted. Are you in any employment at present?”

“I'm doing nothing,” said the other; “and the few pounds I had are now gone to a few shillings; so that by to-morrow or next day, I'll be forced to give my teeth a holiday.”

“Poor fellow,” replied Norton, “that's too bad. Here's a pound note for you, at all events. Not a word now; if we can understand each other you sha'n't want; and I'll tell you what you'll do. After leaving his lordship you must come to my room, where you can have punch to the eyes, and there will be no interruption to our chat. You can then tell me anything you like; but it must come willingly, for I'd scorn to force a secret from any man--that is, if it is a secret. Do you agree to this?”

“I agree to it, and many thanks, worthy sir,” replied M'Bride, putting the pound note in his pocket; after which they chatted upon indifferent matters until the period for his interview with Lord Cullamore had arrived.

Ginty, who had not lost a syllable of this dialogue, to whom, as the reader perhaps may suspect, it was no novelty, followed them at a safe distance, until she saw them enter the house. The interest, however, which she felt in M'Bride's movements, prevented her from going home, or allowing him to slip through her finger without accomplishing a project that she had for some time before meditated, but had hitherto found no opportunity to execute.

Lord Cullamore, on M'Bride's entrance, was in much the same state which we have already described, except that in bodily appearance he was somewhat more emaciated and feeble. There was, however, visible in his features a tone of solemn feeling, elevated but sorrowful, that seemed to bespeak a heart at once resigned and suffering, and disposed to receive the dispensations of life as a man would whose philosophy was softened by a Christian spirit. In the general plan of life he clearly recognized the wisdom which, for the example and the benefit of all, runs with singular beauty through the infinite combinations of human action, verifying the very theory which the baronet saw dimly, but doubted; we mean that harmonious adaptation of moral justice to those actions by which the original principles that diffuse happiness through social life are disregarded and violated. The very order that characterizes all creation, taught him that we are not here without a purpose, and when human nature failed to satisfy him upon the mystery of life, he went to revelation, and found the problem solved. The consequence was, that whilst he felt as a man, he endured as a Christian--aware that this life is, for purposes which we cannot question, chequered with evils that teach us the absolute necessity of another, and make us, in the meantime, docile and submissive to the will of him who called us into being.

His lordship had been reading the Bible as M'Bride entered, and, after having closed it, and placed his spectacles between the leaves as a mark, he motioned the man to come forward.

“Well,” said he, “have you brought those documents with you?”

“I have, my lord.”

“Pray,” said he, “allow me to see them.”

M'Bride hesitated; being a knave himself, he naturally suspected every other man of trick and dishonesty; and yet, when he looked upon the mild but dignified countenance of the old man, made reverend by age and suffering, he had not the courage to give any intimation of the base suspicions he entertained.

“Place the papers before me, sir,” said his lordship, somewhat sharply. “What opinion can I form of their value without having first inspected and examined them?”

As he spoke he took the spectacles from out the Bible, and settled them on his face.

“I know, my lord,” replied M'Bride, taking them out of a pocket-book rather the worse for wear, “that I am placing them in the hands of an honorable man.”

His lordship took them without seeming to have heard this observation; and as he held them up, M'Bride could perceive that a painful change came over him. He became ghastly pale, and his hands trembled so violently, that he was unable to read their contents until he placed them flat upon the table before him. At length, after having read and examined them closely, and evidently so as to satisfy himself of their authenticity, he turned round to M'Bride, and said, “Is any person aware that you are in possession of these documents?”

“Aha,” thought the fellow, “there's an old knave for you. He would give a round sum that they were in ashes, I'll engage; but I'll make him shell out for all that.--I don't think there is, my lord, unless the gentleman--your lordship knows who I mean--that I took them from.”

“Did you take them deliberately from him?”

The man stood uncertain for a moment, and thought that the best thing he could do was to make a merit of the affair, by affecting a strong disposition to serve his lordship.

“The truth is, my lord, I was in his confidence, and as I heard how matters stood, I thought it a pity that your lordship should be annoyed at your time of life, and I took it into my head to place them in your lordship's hands.”

“These are genuine documents,” observed his lordship, looking at them again. “I remember the handwriting distinctly, and have in my possession some letters written by the same individual. Was your master a kind one?”

“Both kind and generous, my lord; and I have no doubt at all but he'd forgive me everything, and advance a large sum besides, in order to get these two little papers back. Your lordship knows he can do nothing against you without them; and I hope you'll consider that, my lord.”

“Did he voluntarily, that is, willingly, and of his own accord, admit you to his confidence? and, if so, upon what grounds?”

“Why, my lord, my wife and I were servants to his father for years, and he, when a slip of a boy, was very fond of me. When he came over here, my lord, it was rather against his will, and not at all for his own sake. So, as he knew that he'd require some one in this country that could act prudently for him, he made up his mind to take me with him, especially as my wife and myself were both anxious to come back to our own country. 'I must trust some one, M'Bride,' said he, 'and I will trust you'; and then he tould me the raison of his journey here.”

“Well,” replied his lordship, “proceed; have you anything more to add!”

“Nothing, my lord, but what I've tould you. I thought it a pitiful case to see a nobleman at your time of life afflicted by the steps he was about to take, and I brought these papers accordingly to your lordship. I hope you'll not forget that, my lord.”

“What value do you place on these two documents?”

“Why, I think a thousand pounds, my lord.”

“Well, sir, your estimate is a very low one--ten thousand would come somewhat nearer the thing.”

“My lord, I can only say,” said M'Bride, “that I'm willin' to take a thousand; but, if your lordship, knowin' the value of the papers as you do, chooses to add anything more, I'll be very happy to accept it.”

“I have another question to ask you, sir,” said his lordship, “which I do with great pain, as I do assure you that this is as painful a dialogue as I ever held in my life. Do you think now, that, provided you had not taken--that is, stolen-these papers from your master, he would, upon the success of the steps he is taking, have given you a thousand pounds?”

The man hesitated, as if he had caught a glimpse of the old man's object in putting the question. “Why--hem--no; I don't think I could expect that, my lord; but a handsome present, I dare say, I might come in for.”

Lord Cullamore raised himself in his chair, and after looking at the treacherous villain with a calm feeling of scorn and indignation, to which his illness imparted a solemn and lofty severity, that made M'Bride feel as if he wished to sink through the floor,

“Go,” said he, looking at him with an eye that was kindled into something of its former fire. “Begone, sir: take away your papers; I will not--I cannot enter into any compact with an ungrateful and perfidious villain like you. These papers have come into your hands by robbery or theft--that is sufficient; there they are, sir--take them away. I shall defend myself and my rights upon principles of justice, but never shall stoop to support them by dishonor.”

On concluding, he flung them across the table with a degree of energy that surprised M'Bride, whilst his color,hitherto so pale, was heightened by a flash of that high feeling and untarnished integrity which are seldom so beautifully impressive as when exhibited in the honorable indignation of old age. It might have been compared to that pale but angry red of the winter sky which flashes so transiently over the snow-clad earth, when the sun, after the fatigues of his short but chilly journey, is about to sink from our sight at the close of day.

M'Bride slunk out of the room crestfallen, disappointed, and abashed; but on reaching the outside of the door he found Norton awaiting him. This worthy gentleman, after beckoning to him to follow, having been striving, with his whole soul centred in the key-hole, to hear the purport of their conference, now proceeded to his own room, accompanied by M'Bride, where we shall leave them without interruption to their conversation and enjoyment, and return once more to Ginty Cooper.

Until the hour of half-past twelve that night Ginty most religiously kept her watch convenient to the door. Just then it opened very quietly, and a man staggered down the hall steps, and bent his course toward the northern part of the city suburbs. A female might be observed to follow him at a distance, and ever as he began to mutter his drunken meditations to himself, she approached him more closely behind, in order, if possible, to lose nothing of what he said.

“An ould fool,” he hiccupped, “to throw them back to me--hie--an' the other a kna-a-ve to want to--to look at them; but I was up--up; if the young-oung L-lor-ord will buy them, he mu-must-ust pay for them, for I hav-ave them safe. Hang it, my head's turn-turn-turnin' about like the--”

At this portion of his reflections he turned into a low, dark line of cabins, some inhabited, and others ruined and waste, followed by the female in question; and if the reader cannot ascertain her object in dogging him, he must expect no assistance in guessing it from us.

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XXXV. Lucy's Vain but Affecting Expostulation with her Father

--Her Terrible Denunciation of Ambrose Gray.

The next morning, after breakfast, Lord Dunroe found Norton and M'Bride in the stable yard, when the following conversation took place.

“Norton,” said his lordship, “I can't understand what they mean by the postponement of this trial about the mare. I fear they will beat us, and in that case it is better, perhaps, to compromise it. You know that that attorney fellow Birney is engaged against us, and by all accounts he has his wits about him.”

“Yes, my lord; but Birney is leaving home, going to France, and they have succeeded in getting it postponed until the next term. My lord, this is the man, M'Bride, that I told you of this morning. M'Bride, have you brought those documents with you? I wish to show them to his lordship, who, I think, you will find a more liberal purchaser than his father.”

“What's that you said, sir,” asked M'Bride, with an appearance of deep interest, “about Mr. Birney going to France?”

“This is no place to talk about these matters,” said his lordship; “bring the man up to your own room, Norton, and I will join you there. The thing, however, is a mere farce, and my father a fool, or he would not give himself any concern about it. Bring him to your room, where I will join you presently. But, observe me, Norton, none of these tricks upon me in future. You said you got only twenty-five for the mare, and now it appears you got exactly double the sum. Now, upon my honor, I won't stand any more of this.”

“But, my lord,” replied Norton, laughing, “don't you see how badly you reason? I got fifty for the mare; of this I gave your lordship twenty-five--the balance I kept myself. Of course, then, you can fairly say, or swear, if you like, that she brought you in nothing but the fair value. In fact, I kept you completely out of the transaction; but, after all, I only paid myself for the twenty-five I won off you.”

Dunroe was by no means in anything like good-humor this morning. The hints which Norton had communicated to him at breakfast, respecting the subject of M'Bride's private interviews with his father, had filled him with more alarm than he wished to acknowledge. Neither, on the other hand, had he any serious apprehensions, for, unhappily for himself, he was one of those easy and unreflecting men who seldom look beyond the present moment, and can never be brought to a reasonable consideration of their own interests, until, perhaps, it is too late to secure them.

All we can communicate to the reader with respect to the conference between these three redoubtable individuals is simply its results. On that evening Norton and M'Bride started for France, with what object will be seen hereafter, Birney having followed on the same route the morning but one afterwards, for the purpose of securing the documents in question.

Dunroe now more than ever felt the necessity of urging his marriage with Lucy. He knew his father's honorable spirit too well to believe that he would for one moment yield his consent to it under the circumstances which were now pending. With the full knowledge of these circumstances he was not acquainted. M'Bride had somewhat overstated the share of confidence to which in this matter he had been admitted by his master. His information, therefore, on the subject, was not so accurate as he wished, although, from motives of dishonesty and a desire to sell his documents to the best advantage, he made the most of the knowledge he possessed. Be this as it may, Dunroe determined, as we said, to bring about the nuptials without delay, and in this he was seconded by Sir Thomas Gourlay himself, who also had his own motives for hastening them. In fact, here were two men, each deliberately attempting to impose upon the other, and neither possessed of one spark of honor or truth, although the transaction between them was one of the most solemn importance that can occur in the great business of life. The world, however, is filled with similar characters; and not all the misery and calamity that ensue from such fraudulent and dishonest practices will, we fear, ever prevent the selfish and ambitious from pursuing the same courses.

“Sir Thomas,” said Dunroe, in a conversation with the baronet held on the very day after Norton and M'Bride had set out on their secret expedition, “this marriage is unnecessarily delayed. I am anxious that it should take place as soon as it possibly can.”

“But,” replied the baronet, “I have not been able to see your father on the subject, in consequence of his illness.”

“It is not necessary,” replied his lordship. “You know what kind of a man he is. In fact, I fear he is very nearly non compos as it is. He has got so confoundedly crotchety of late, that I should not feel surprised if, under some whim or other, he set his face-against it altogether. In fact, it is useless, and worse than useless, to consult him at all about it. I move, therefore, that we go on without him.”

“I think you are right,” returned the other; “and I have not the slightest objection: name the day. The contract is drawn up, and only requires to be signed.”

“I should say, on Monday next,” replied his lordship; “but I fear we will have objections and protestations from Miss Gourlay; and if so, how are we to manage?”

“Leave the management of Miss Gourlay to me, my lord,” replied her father. “I have managed her before and shall manage her now.”

His lordship had scarcely gone, when Lucy was immediately sent for, and as usual found her father in the library.

“Lucy,” said he, with as much blandness of manner as he could assume, “I have sent for you to say that you are called upon to make your father happy at last.”

“And myself wretched forever, papa.”

“But your word, Lucy--your promise--your honor: remember that promise so solemnly given; remember, too, your duty of obedience as a daughter.”

“Alas! I remember everything, papa; too keenly, too bitterly do I remember all.”

“You will be prepared to marry Dunroe on Monday next. The affair will be comparatively private. That is to say, we will ask nobody--no dejeuner--no nonsense. The fewer the better at these matters. Would you wish to see your brother--hem--I mean Mr. Gray?”

Lucy had been standing while he spoke; but she now staggered over to a seat, on which she fell rather than sat. Her large, lucid eyes lost their lustre; her frame quivered; her face became of an ashy paleness; but still those eyes were bent upon her father.

“Papa,” she said, at length, in a low voice that breathed of horror, “do not kill me.”

“Kill you, foolish girl! Now really, Lucy, this is extremely ridiculous and vexatious too. Is not my daughter a woman of honor?”

“Papa,” she said, solemnly, going down upon her two knees, and joining her lovely and snowy hands together, in an attitude of the most earnest and heart-rending supplication; “papa, hear me. You have said that I saved your life; be now as generous as I was--save mine.”

“Lucy,” he replied, “this looks like want of principle. You would violate your promise. I should not wish Dunroe to hear this, or to know it. He might begin to reason upon it, and to say that the woman who could deliberately break a solemn promise might not hesitate at the marriage vow. I do not apply this reasoning to you, but he or others might. Of course, I expect that, as a woman of honor, you will keep your word with me, and marry Dunroe on Monday. You will have no trouble--everything shall be managed by them; a brilliant trousseau can be provided as well afterwards as before.”

Lucy rose up; and as she did, the blood, which seemed to have previously gathered, to her heart, now returned to her cheek, and began to mantle upon it, whilst her figure, before submissive and imploring, dilated to its full size.

“Father,” said she, “since you will not hear the voice of supplication, hear that of reason and truth. Do not entertain a doubt, no, not for a moment, that if I am urged--driven--to this marriage, hateful and utterly detestable to me as it is, I shall hesitate to marry this man. I say this, however, because I tell you that I am about to appeal to your interest in my true happiness for the last time. Is it, then, kind; is it fatherly in you, sir, to exact from me the fulfilment of a promise given under circumstances that ought to touch your heart into a generous perception of the sacrifice which in giving it I made for your sake alone? You were ill, and laboring under the apprehension of sudden death, principally, you said, in consequence of my refusal to become the wife of that man. I saw this; and although the effort was infinitely worse than death to me, I did not hesitate one moment in yielding up what is at any time dearer to me than life--my happiness--that you might be spared. Alas, my dear father, if you knew how painful it is to me to be forced to plead all this in my own defence, you would, you must, pity me. A generous heart, almost under any circumstances, scorns to plead its own acts, especially when they are on the side of virtue. But I, alas, am forced to it; am forced to do that which I would otherwise scorn and blush to do.”

“Lucy,” replied her father, who felt in his ambitious and tyrannical soul the full force, not only of what she said, but of the fraud he had practised on her, but which she never suspected: “Lucy, my child, you will drive me mad. Perhaps I am wrong; but at the same time my heart is so completely fixed upon this marriage, that if it be not brought about I feel I shall go insane. The value of life would be lost to me, and most probably I shall die the dishonorable death of a suicide.”

“And have you no fear for me, my father--no apprehension that I may escape from this my wretched destiny to the peace of the grave? But you need not. Thank God, I trust and feel that my regard for His precepts, and my perceptions of His providence, are too clear and too firm ever to suffer me to fly like a coward from the post in life which He has assigned me. But why, dear father, should you make me the miserable victim of your ambition?--I am not ambitious.”

“I know you are not: I never could get an honorable ambition instilled into you.”

“I am not mean, however--nay, I trust that I possess all that honest and honorable pride which would prevent me from doing an unworthy act, or one unbecoming either my sex or my position.”

“You would not break your word, for instance, nor render your father wretched, insane, mad, or, perhaps, cause his dreadful malady to return. No--no--but yet fine talking is a fine thing. Madam, cease to plead your virtues to me, unless you prove that you possess them by keeping your honorable engagement made to Lord Dunroe, through the sacred medium of your own father. Whatever you may do, don't attempt to involve me in your disgrace.”

“I am exhausted,” she said, “and cannot speak any longer; but I will not despair of you, father. No, my dear papa,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck, laying her head upon his bosom, and bursting into tears, “I will not think that you could sacrifice your daughter. You will relent for Lucy as Lucy did for you--but I feel weak. You know, papa, how this fever on my spirits has worn me down; and, after all, the day might come--and come with bitterness and remorse to your heart--when you may be forced to feel that although you made your Lucy a countess she did not remain a countess long.”

“What do you mean now?”

“Don't you see, papa, that my heart is breaking fast? If you will not hear my words--if they cannot successfully plead for me--let my declining health--let my pale and wasted cheek--let my want of spirits, my want of appetite--and, above all, let that which you cannot see nor feel--the sickness of my unhappy heart--plead for me. Permit me to go, dear papa; and will you allow me to lean upon you to my own room?--for, alas! I am not, after this painful excitement, able to go there myself. Thank you, papa, thank you.”

He was thus compelled to give her his arm, and, in doing so, was surprised to feel the extraordinary tremor by which her frame was shaken. On reaching her room, she turned round, and laying her head, with an affectionate and supplicating confidence, once more upon his breast, she whispered with streaming eyes, “Alas! my dear papa, you forget, in urging me to marry this hateful profligate, that my heart, my affections, my love--in the fullest, and purest, and most disinterested sense--are irrevocably fixed upon another; and Dunroe, all mean and unmanly as he is, knows this.”

“He knows that--there, sit down--why do you tremble so?--Yes, but he knows that what you consider an attachment is a mere girlish fancy, a whimsical predilection that your own good-sense will show you the folly of at a future time.”

“Recollect, papa, that he has been extravagant, and is said to be embarrassed; the truth is, sir, that the man values not your daughter, but the property to which he thinks he will become entitled, and which I have no doubt will be very welcome to his necessities. I feel that I speak truth, and as a test of his selfishness, it will be only necessary to acquaint him with the reappearance of my brother--your son and heir--and you will be no further troubled by his importunities.”

“Troubled by his importunity! Why, girl, it's I that am troubled with apprehension lest he might discover the existence of your brother, and draw off.”

One broad gaze of wonder and dismay she turned upon him, and her face became crimsoned with shame. She then covered it with her open hands, and, turning round, placed her head upon the end of the sofa, and moaned with a deep and bursting anguish, on hearing this acknowledgment of deliberate baseness from his own lips.

The baronet understood her feelings, and regretted the words he had uttered, but he resolved to bear the matter out.

“Don't be surprised, Lucy,” he added, “nor alarmed at these sentiments; for I tell you, that rather than be defeated in the object I propose for your elevation in life, I would trample a thousand times upon all the moral obligations that ever bound man. Put it down to what you like--insanity--monomania, if you will--but so it is with me: I shall work my purpose out, or either of us shall die for it; and from this you may perceive how likely your resistance and obduracy are to become available against the determination of such a man as I am. Compose yourself, girl, and don't be a fool. The only way to get properly through life is to accommodate ourselves to its necessities, or, in other words, to have shrewdness and common sense, and foil the world, if we can, at its own weapons. Give up your fine sentiment, I desire you, and go down to the drawing-room, to receive your brother; hem will be here very soon. I am going to the assizes, and shall not return till about four o'clock. Come, come, all will end better than you imagine.”

The mention of her brother was anything but a comfort to Lucy. Her father at first entertained apprehensions, as we have already said, that this promising youth might support his sister in her aversion against the marriage. Two or three conversations on the subject soon undeceived him, however, in the view he had taken of his character; and Lucy herself now dreaded him, on this subject, almost as much as she did her father.

With respect to this same brother, it is scarcely necessary now to say, that Lucy's feelings had undergone a very considerable change. On hearing that he not only was in existence, but that she would soon actually behold him, her impassioned imagination painted him as she wished and hoped he might prove to be--that is, in the first place--tall, elegant, handsome, and with a strong likeness to the mother whom he had been said so much to resemble; and, in the next--oh, how her trembling heart yearned to find him affectionate, tender, generous, and full of all those noble and manly virtues on which might rest a delightful sympathy, a pure and generous affection, and a tender and trusting confidence between them. On casting her eyes upon him for the first time, however, she felt at the moment like one disenchanted, or awakening from some delightful illusion to a reality so much at variance with the beau ideal of her imagination, as to occasion a feeling of disappointment that amounted almost to pain. There stood before her a young man, with a countenance so like her father's, that the fact startled her. Still there was a difference, for--whether from the consciousness of birth, or authority, or position in life--there was something in her father's features that redeemed them from absolute vulgarity. Here, however, although the resemblance was extraordinary, and every feature almost identical, there might be read in the countenance of her brother a low, commonplace expression, that looked as if it were composed of effrontery, cunning, and profligacy. Lucy for a moment shrank back from such a countenance, and the shock of disappointment chilled the warmth with which she had been prepared to receive him. But, then, her generous heart told her that she might probably be prejudging the innocent--that neglect, want of education, the influence of the world, and, worst of all, distress and suffering, might have caused the stronger, more vulgar, and exceedingly disagreeable expression which she saw before her; and the reader is already aware of the consequences which these struggles, at their first interview, had upon her. Subsequently to that, however, Mr. Ambrose, in supporting his father's views, advanced principles in such complete accordance with them, as to excite in his sister's breast, first a deep regret that she could not love him as she had hoped to do; then a feeling stronger than indifference itself, and ultimately one little short of aversion. Her father had been now gone about half an hour, and she hoped that her brother might not come, when a servant came to say that Mr. Gray was in the drawing-room, and requested to see her.

She felt that the interview would be a painful one to her; but still he was her brother, and she knew she could not avoid seeing him.

After the first salutations were over,

“What is the matter with you, Lucy?” he asked; “you look ill and distressed. I suppose the old subject of the marriage--eh?”

“I trust it is one which you will not renew, Thomas. I entreat you to spare me on it.”

“I am too much your friend to do so, Lucy. It is really inconceivable to me why you should oppose it as you do. But the truth is, you don't know the world, or you would think and act very differently.”

“Thomas,” she replied, whilst her eyes filled with tears, “I am almost weary of life. There is not one living individual to whom I can turn for sympathy or comfort. Papa has forbidden me to visit Lady Gourlay or Mrs. Mainwaring; and I am now utterly friendless, with the exception of God alone. But I will not despair--so long, at least, as reason is left to me.”

“I assure you, Lucy, you astonish me. To you, whose imagination is heated with a foolish passion for an adventurer whom no one knows, all this suffering may seem very distressing and romantic; but to me, to my father, and to the world, it looks like great folly--excuse me, Lucy--or rather like great weakness of character, grounded upon strong obstinacy of disposition. Believe me, if the world were to know this you would be laughed at; and there is scarcely a mother or daughter, from the cottage to the castle, that would not say, 'Lucy Gourlay is a poor, inexperienced fool, who thinks she can find a world of angels, and paragons, and purity to live in.'”

“But I care not for the world, Thomas; it is not my idol--I do not worship it, nor shall I ever do so. I wish to guide myself by the voice of my own conscience, by a sense of what is right and proper, and by the principles of Christian truth.”

“These doctrines, Lucy, are very well for the closet; but they will neyer do in life, for which they are little short of a disqualification. Where, for instance, will you find them acted on? Not by people of sense, I assure you. Now listen to me.”

“Spare me, if you please, Thomas, the advocacy of such principles. You occasion me great pain--not so much on my own account as on yours--you alarm me.”

“Don't be alarmed, I tell you; but listen to me, as I said. Here, now, is this marriage: you don't love this Dunroe--you dislike, you detest him. Very well. What the deuce has that to do with the prospects of your own elevation in life? Think for yourself--become the centre of your own world; make this Dunroe your footstool--put him under your foot, I say, and mount by him; get a position in the world--play your game in it as you see others do; and--”

“Pray, sir,” said Lucy, scarcely restraining her indignation, “where, or when, or how did you come by these odious and detestable doctrines?”

“Faith, Lucy, from honest nature--from experience and observation. Is there any man with a third idea, or that has the use of his eyes, who does not know and see that this is the game of life? Dunroe, I dare say, deserves your contempt; report goes, certainly, that he is a profligate; but what ought especially to reconcile him to you is this simple fact--that the man's a fool. Egad, I think that ought to satisfy you.”

Lucy rose up and went to the window, where she stood for some moments, her eyes sparkling and scintillating, and her bosom heaving with a tide of feelings which were repressed by a strong and exceedingly difficult effort. She then returned to the sofa, her cheeks and temples in a blaze, whilst ever and anon she eyed her brother as if from a new point of view, or as if something sudden and exceedingly disagreeable had struck her.

“You look at me very closely, Lucy,” said he, with a confident grin.

“I do,” she replied. “Proceed, sir.”

“I will. Well, as I was saying, you will find it remarkably comfortable and convenient in many ways to be married to a fool: he will give you very little trouble; fools are never suspicious, but, on the contrary, distinguished for an almost sublime credulity. Then, again, you love this other gentleman; and, with a fool for your husband, and the example of the world before you, what the deuce difficulty can you see in the match?”

Lucy rose up, and for a few moments the very force of her indignation kept her silent; at length she spoke.

“Villain--impostor--cheat! you stand there convicted of an infamous attempt to impose yourself on me as my legitimate brother--on my father as his legitimate son; but know that I disclaim you, sir. What! the fine and gentle blood of my blessed mother to flow in the veins of the profligate monster who could give utterance to principles worthy of hell itself, and attempt to pour them into the ears and heart of his own sister! Sir, I feel, and I thank God for it, that you are not the son of my blessed mother--no; but you stand there a false and spurious knave, the dishonest instrument of some fraudulent conspiracy, concocted for the purpose of putting you into a position of inheriting a name and property to which you have no claim. I ought, on the moment I first saw you, to have been guided by the instincts of my own heart, which prompted me to recoil from and disclaim you. I know not, nor do I wish to know, in what low haunts of vice and infamy you have been bred; but one thing is certain, that, if it be within the limits of my power, you shall be traced and unmasked. I now remember me that--that--there existed an early scandal--yes, sir, I remember it, but I cannot even repeat it; be assured, however, that this inhuman and devilish attempt to poison my principles will prove the source of a retributive judgment on your head. Begone, sir, and leave the house!”

The pallor of detected guilt, the consciousness that in this iniquitous lecture he had overshot the mark, and made a grievous miscalculation in pushing his detestable argument too far--but, above all, the startling suspicions so boldly and energetically expressed by Lucy, the truth of which, as well as the apprehensions that filled him of their discovery, all united, made him feel as if he stood on the brink of a mine to which the train had been already applied. And yet, notwithstanding all this, such was the natural force of his effrontery--such the vulgar insolence and bitter disposition of his nature, that, instead of soothing her insulted feelings, or offering either explanation or apology, he could not restrain an impudent exhibition of ill-temper.

“You forget yourself, Lucy,” he replied; “you have no authority to order me out of this house, in which I stand much firmer than yourself. Neither do I comprehend your allusions, nor regard your threats. The proofs of my identity and legitimacy are abundant and irresistible. As to the advice I gave you, I gave it like one who knows the world--”

“No, sir,” she replied, indignantly; “you gave it like a man who knows only its vices. It is sickening to hear every profligate quote his own experience of life, as if it were composed of nothing but crimes and vices, simply because they constitute the guilty phase of it with which he is acquainted. But the world, sir, is not the scene of general depravity which these persons would present it. No: it is full of great virtues, noble actions, high principles; and, what is better still, of true religion and elevated humanity. What right, then, sir, have you to libel a world which you do not understand? You are merely a portion of its dregs, and I would as soon receive lessons in honesty from a thief as principles for my guidance in it from you. As for me, I shall disregard the proofs of your identity and legitimacy, which, however, must be produced and investigated; for, from this moment, establish them as you may, I shall never recognize you as a brother, as an acquaintance, as a man, nor as anything but a selfish and abandoned villain, who would have corrupted the principles of his sister.”

Without another word, or the slightest token of respect or courtesy, she deliberately, and with an air of indignant scorn, walked out of the drawing-room, leaving Mr. Ambrose Gray in a position which we dare say nobody will envy him.

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XXXVI. Contains a Variety of Matters

--Some to Laugh and some to Weep at.

Our readers may have observed that Sir Thomas Gourlay led a secluded life ever since the commencement of our narrative. The fact was, and he felt it deeply, that he had long been an unpopular man. That he was a bad, overbearing husband, too, had been well known, for such was the violence of his temper, and the unvaried harshness of his disposition toward his wife, that the general tenor of his conduct, so far even as she was concerned, could not be concealed. His observations on life and personal character were also so cynical and severe, not to say unjust, that his society was absolutely avoided, unless by some few of his own disposition. And yet nothing could be more remarkable than the contrast that existed between his principles and conduct in many points, thus affording, as they did, an involuntary acknowledgment of his moral errors.

He would not, for instance, admit his sceptical friends, who laughed at the existence of virtue and religion, to the society of his daughter, with the exception of Lord Dunroe, to whose vices his unaccountable ambition for her elevation completely blinded him. Neither did he wish her to mingle much with the world, from a latent apprehension that she might tind it a different thing from what he himself represented it to be; and perhaps might learn there the low estimate which it had formed of her future husband. Like most misanthropical men, therefore, whose hatred of life is derived principally from that uneasiness of conscience which proceeds from their own vices, he kept aloof from society as far as the necessities of his position allowed him.

Mrs. Mainwaring had called upon him several times with an intention of making some communication which she trusted would have had the effect of opening his eyes to the danger into which he was about to precipitate his daughter by her contemplated! marriage with Dunroe. He uniformly refused, however, to see her, or to allow her any opportunity of introducing the subject. Finding herself deliberately and studiously repulsed, this good lady, who still occasionally corresponded with Lucy, came to the resolution of writing to him on the subject, and, accordingly, Gibson, one morning, with his usual cool and deferential manner, presented him with the following letter:

“SUMMERFIELD COTTAGE.

“Sir,--I should feel myself utterly unworthy of the good opinion which I trust I am honored with by your admirable daughter, were I any longer to remain silent upon a subject of the deepest importance to her future happiness. I understand that she is almost immediately about to become the wife of Lord Dunroe. Now, sir, I entreat your most serious attention; and I am certain, if you will only bestow it upon the few words I am about to write, that you, and especially Miss Gourlay, will live to thank God that I interposed to prevent this unhallowed union. I say then, emphatically, as I shall be able to prove most distinctly, that if you permit Miss Gourlay to become the wife of this young nobleman you will seal her ruin--defeat the chief object which you cherish, for her in life, and live to curse the day on which you urged it on. The communications which I have to make are of too much importance to be committed to paper; but if you will only allow me, and I once more implore it for the sake of your child, as well as for your own future ease of mind, the privilege of a short interview, I shall completely satisfy you as to the truth of what I state.

“I have the honor to be, sir,

“Your obliged and obedient servant,

“Martha Mainwaring.”

Having perused the first sentence of this earnest and friendly letter, Sir Thomas indignantly flung it into a drawer where he kept all communications to which it did not please him at the moment to pay particular attention.

Lucy's health in the meantime was fast breaking: but so delicate and true was her sense of honor and duty that she would have looked upon any clandestine communication with her lover as an infraction of the solemn engagement into which she had entered for her father's sake,--and by which, even at the expense of her own happiness, she considered herself bound. Still, she felt that a communication on the subject was due to him, and her principal hope now was that her father would allow her to make it. If he, however, refused this sanction to an act of common justice, then she resolved to write to him openly, and make the wretched circumstances in which she was involved, and the eternal barrier that had been placed between them, known to him at once.

Her father, however, now found, to his utter mortification, that he was driving matters somewhat too fast, and that his daughter's health must unquestionably be restored before he could think of outraging humanity and public decency by forcing her from the sick bed to the altar.

After leaving her brother on the occasion of their last remarkable interview, she retired to her room so full of wretchedness, indignation, and despair of all human aid or sympathy, that she scarcely knew whether their conversation was a dream or a reality. Above all things, the shock she received through her whole moral system, delicately and finely tempered as it was, so completely prostrated her physical strength, and estranged all the virtuous instincts of her noble nature, that it was with difficulty she reached her own room. When there, she immediately rang for her maid, who at once perceived by the indignant sparkle of her eye, the heightened color of her cheek, and the energetic agitation of her voice, that something exceedingly unpleasant had occurred.

“My gracious, miss,” she exclaimed, “what has happened? You look so disturbed! Something, or somebody, has offended you.”

“I am disturbed, Alice,” she replied, “I am disturbed; come and lend me your arm; my knees are trembling so that I cannot walk without assistance; but must sit down for a moment. Indeed, I feel that my strength is fast departing from me. I scarcely know what I am thinking. I am all confused, agitated, shocked. Gracious heaven! Come, my dear Alice, help your mistress; you, Alice, are the only friend I have left now. Are you not my friend, Alice?”

She was sitting on a lounger as she spoke, and the poor affectionate girl, who loved her as she did her life, threw herself over, and leaning her head upon her mistress's knees wept bitterly.

“Sit beside me, Alice,” said she; “whatever distance social distinctions may have placed between us, I feel that the truth and sincerity of those tears justify me in placing you near my heart. Sit beside me, but compose yourself; and then you must assist me to bed.”

“They are killing you,” said Alley, still weeping. “What devil can tempt them to act as they do? As for me, miss, it's breaking my heart, that I see what you are suffering, and can't assist you.”

“But I have your love and sympathy, your fidelity, too, my dear Alice; and that now is all I believe the world has left me.”

“No, miss,” replied her maid, wiping her eyes, and striving to compose herself, “no, indeed; there is another--another gentleman, I mean--as well as myself, that feels deeply for your situation.”

Had Lucy's spirit been such as they were wont to be, she could have enjoyed this little blunder of Alice's; but now her heart, like some precious jewel that lies too deep in the bosom of the ocean for the sun's strongest beams to reach, had sunk beneath the influence of either cheerfulness or mirth.

“There is indeed, miss,” continued Alice,

“And pray, Alice,” asked her mistress, “how do you know that?”

“Why, miss,” replied the girl, “I am told that of late he is looking very ill, too. They say he has lost his spirits all to pieces, and seldom laughs--the Lord save us!”

“They say!--who say, Alice?”

“Why,” replied Alice, with a perceptible heightening of her color, “ahem! ahem! why, Dandy Dulcimer, miss.”

“And where have you seen him? Dulcimer, I mean. He, I suppose, who used occasionally to play upon the instrument of that name in the Hall?”

“Yes, ma'am, the same. Don't you remember how beautiful he played it the night we came in the coach to town?”

“I remember there was something very-unpleasant between him and a farmer, I believe; but I did not pay much attention to it at the time.”

“I am sorry for that, miss, for I declare to goodness, Dandy's dulcimer isn't such an unpleasant instrument as you think; and, besides, he has got a new one the other day that plays lovely.”

Lucy felt a good deal anxious to hear some further information from Alley upon the subject she had introduced, but saw that Dandy and his dulcimer were likely to be substituted for it, all unconscious as the poor girl was of the preference of the man to the master.

“He looks ill, you say, Alice?”

“Never seen him look so rosy in my life, miss, nor in such spirits.”

Lucy looked into her face, and for a moment's space one slight and feeble gleam, which no suffering could prevent, passed over it, at this intimation of the object which Alley's fancy then dwelt upon.

“He danced a hornpipe, miss, to the tune of the Swaggerin' Jig, upon the kitchen table,” she proceeded; “and, sorra be off me, but it would do your heart good to see the springs he would give--every one o' them a yard high--and to hear how he'd crack his fingers as loud as the shot of a pistol.”

A slight gloom overclouded Lucy's face; but, on looking at the artless transition from the honest sympathy which Alley had just felt for her to a sense of happiness which it was almost a crime to disturb, it almost instantly disappeared.

“I must not be angry with her,” she said to herself; “this feeling, after all, is only natural, and such as God. in his goodness bestows upon every heart as the greatest gift of life, when not abused. I cannot be displeased at the naivete with which she has forgotten my lover for her own; for such I perceive this person she speaks of evidently is.”

She looked once more at her maid, whose eyes, with true Celtic feeling, were now dancing with delight, whilst yet red with tears. “Alice,” said she, in a voice of indulgent reproof, “who are you thinking of?”

“Why, of Dandy, miss,” replied Alley; but in an instant the force of the reproof as well as of the indulgence was felt, and sho acknowledged her error by a blush.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” she said; “I'm a thoughtless creature. What can you care about what I was sayin'? But--hem--well, about him--sure enough, poor Dandy told me that everything is going wrong with him. He doesn't, as I said, speak or smile as he used to do.”

“Do you know,” asked her mistress, “whether he goes out much?”

“Not much, miss, I think; he goes sometimes to Lady Gourlay's and to Dean Palmer's. But do you know what I heard, miss I hope you won't grow jealous, though?”

Lucy gave a faint smile. “I hope not, Alice. What is it?” But here, on recollecting again the scene she had just closed below stairs, she shuddered, and could not help exclaiming, “Oh, gracious heaven!” Then suddenly throwing off, as it were, all thought and reflection connected with it, she looked again at her maid, and repeated the question, “What is it, Alice?”

“Why, miss, have you ever seen Lord Dunroe's sister?”

“Yes, in London; but she was only a girl, though a lovely girl.”

“Well, miss, do you know what? She's in love with some one.”

“Poor girl!” exclaimed, Lucy, “I trust the course of her love may run smoother than mine; but who is she supposed to be in love with?” she asked, not, however, without a blush, which, with all her virtues, was, as woman, out of her power to suppress.

“Oh,” replied Alley, “not with him--and dear knows it would be no disgrace to her, but the contrary, to fall in love with such a gentleman--no; but with a young officer of the Thirty-third, who they say is lovely.”

“What is his name, do you not know, Alice?”

“Roberts, I think. They met at Dean Palmer's and Lady Gourlay's; for it seems that Colonel Dundas was an old brother officer of Sir Edward's, when he was young and in the army.”

“I have met that young officer, Alice,” replied Lucy, “and I know not how it was, but I felt an--a--a--in fact, I cannot describe it. Those who were present observed that he and I resembled each other very much, and indeed the resemblance struck myself very forcibly.”

“Troth, and if he resembled you, miss, I'm not surprised that Lady Emily fell in love with him.”

“But how did you come to hear all this, Alice?” asked Lucy with a good deal of anxiety.

“Why, miss, there's a cousin of my own maid to Mrs. Palmer, and you may remember the evenin' you gave me lave to spend with her. She gave a party on the same evenin' and Dandy was there. I think I never looked better; I had on my new stays, and my hair was done up Grecian. Any way, I wasn't the worst of them.”

“I am fatigued, Alice,” said Lucy; “make your narrative as short as you can.”

“I haven't much to add to it now, miss,” she replied. “It was observed that Lady Emily's eyes and his were never off one another. She refused, it seems, to dance with some major that's a great lord in the regiment, and danced with Mr. Roberts afterwards. He brought her down to supper, too, and sat beside her, and you know what that looks like.”

Lucy paused, and seemed as if anxious about something, but at length asked,

“Do you know, Alice, was he there?”

“No, miss,” replied the maid; “Dandy tells me he goes to no great parties at all, he only dines where there's a few. But, indeed, by all accounts he's very unhappy.”

“What do you mean by all accounts,” asked Lucy, a little startled.

“Why, Dandy, miss; so he tells me.”

“Poor Alice!” exclaimed Lucy, looking benignantly upon her. “I did not think, Alice, that any conversation could have for a moment won me from the painful state of mind in which I entered the room. Aid me me now to my bedchamber. I must lie down, for I feel that I should endeavor to recruit my strength some way. If I could sleep, I should be probably the better for it; but, alas, Alice, you need not be told that misery and despair are wretched bedfellows.”

“Don't say despair,” replied Alice; “remember there's a good God above us, who can do better for us than ever we can for ourselves. Trust in him. Who knows but he's only trying you; and severely tried you are, my darlin' mistress.”

Whilst uttering the last words, the affectionate creature's eyes filled with tears. She rose, however, and having assisted Lucy to her sleeping-room, helped to undress her, then fixed her with tender assiduity in her bed, where, in a few minutes, exhaustion and anxiety of mind were for the time forgotten, and she fell asleep.

The penetration of servants, in tracing, at fashionable parties, the emotions of love through all its various garbs and disguises, constitutes a principal and not the least disagreeable portion of their duty. The history of Lady Emily's attachment to Ensign Roberts, though a profound secret to the world, in the opinion of the parties themselves, and only hoped for and suspected by each, was nevertheless perfectly well known by a good number of the quality below stairs. The circumstance, at all events, as detailed by Alley, was one which in this instance justified their sagacity. Roberts and she had met, precisely as Alley said, three or four times at Lady Gourlay's and the Dean's, where their several attractions were, in fact, the theme of some observation. Those long, conscious glances, however, which, on the subject of love are such traitors to the heart, by disclosing its most secret operations, had sufficiently well told them the state of everything within that mysterious little garrison, and the natural result was that Lady Emily seldom thought of any one or anything but Ensign Roberts and the aforesaid glances, nor Mr. Roberts of anything but hers; for it so happened, that, with the peculiar oversight in so many things by which the passion is characterized, Lady Emily forgot that she had herself been glancing at the ensign, or she could never have observed and interpreted his looks. With a similar neglect of his own offences, in the same way must we charge Mr. Roberts, who in his imagination saw nothing but the blushing glances of this fair patrician.

Time went on, however, and Lucy, so far from recovering, was nearly one-half of the week confined to her bed, or her apartment. Sometimes, by way of varying the scene, and, if possible, enlivening her spirits, she had forced herself to go down to the drawing-room, and occasionally to take an airing in the carriage. A fortnight had elapsed, and yet neither Norton nor his fellow-traveler had returned from France. Neither had Mr. Birney; and our friend the stranger had failed to get any possible intelligence of unfortunate Fenton, whom he now believed to have perished, either by foul practices or the influence of some intoxicating debauch. Thanks to Dandy Dulcimer, however, as well as to Alley Mahon, he was not without information concerning Lucy's state of health; and, unfortunately, all that he could hear about it was only calculated to depress and distract him.

Dandy came to him one morning, about this period, and after rubbing his head slightly with the tips of his fingers, said,

“Bedad, sir, I was very near havin' cotch the right Mrs. Norton yestherday--I mane, I thought I was.”

“How was that?” asked his master. “Why, sir, I heard there was a fine, good-looking widow of that name, livin' in Meeklenburgh street, where she keeps a dairy; and sure enough there I found her. Do you undherstand, sir?”

“Why should I not, sirra? What mystery is there in it that I should not?”

“Deuce a sich a blazer of a widow I seen this seven years. I went early to her place, and the first thing I saw was a lump of a six-year-ould--a son of hers--playin' the Pandean pipes upon a whack o' bread and butther that he had aiten at the top into canes. Somehow, although I can't tell exactly why, I tuck a fancy to become acquainted with her, and proposed, if she had no objection, to take a cup o' tay with her yestherday evenin', statin' at the time that I had something to say that might turn out to her advantage.”

“But what mystery is there in all this?” said his master.

“Mysthery, sir--why, where was there ever a widow since the creation of Peter White, that hadn't more or less of mysthery about her?”

“Well, but what was the mystery here?” asked the other. “I do not perceive any, so far.”

“Take your time, sir,” replied Dandy; “it's comin'. The young performer on the Pandeans that I tould you of wasn't more than five or six at the most, but a woman over the way, that I made inquiries of, tould me the length o' time the husband was dead. Do you undherstand the mysthery now, sir?”

“Go on,” replied the other; “I am amused by you; but I don't see the mystery, notwithstanding. What was the result?”

“I tell you the truth--she was a fine, comely, fiaghoola woman; and as I heard she had the shiners, I began to think I might do worse.”

“I thought the girl called Alley Mahon was your favorite?”

“So she is, sir--that is, she's one o' them: but, talkin' o' favorites, I am seldom without half-a-dozen.”

“Very liberal, indeed, Dandy; but I wish to hear the upshot.”

“Why, sir, we had a cup o' tay together yestherday evenin', and, between you and me, I began, as it might be, to get fond of her. She's very pretty, sir; but I must say, that the man who marries her will get a mouth, plaise goodness, that he must kiss by instalments. Faith, if it could be called property, he might boast that his is extensive; and divil a mistake in it.”

“She has a large mouth, then?”

“Upon my soul, sir, if you stood at the one side of it you'd require a smart telescope to see to the other. No man at one attempt could ever kiss her. I began, sir, at the left side--that's always the right side to kiss at and went on successfully enough till I got half way through; but you see, sir, the evenin's is but short yet, and as I had no time to finish, I'm to go back this evenin' to get to the other side.

“Still I'm at a loss, Dandy,” replied his master, not knowing whether to smile or get angry; “finish it without going about in this manner.”

“Faith, sir, and that's more than I could do in kissing the widow. Divil such a circumbendibus ever a man had as I had in gettin' as far as the nose, where I had to give up until this evenin' as I said. Now, sir, whether to consider that an advantage or disadvantage is another mysthery to me. There's some women, and they have such a small, rosy, little mouth, that a man must gather up his lips into a bird's bill to kiss them. Now, there's Miss Gour--”

A look of fury from his master divided the word in his mouth, and he paused from terror. His master became more composed, however, and said, “To what purpose have you told me all this?”

“Gad, sir to tell you the truth, I saw you were low-spirited, and wanted something to rouse you. It's truth for all that.”

“Is this Mrs. Norton, however, the woman whom we are seeking?”

“Well, well,” exclaimed Dandy, casting down his hand, with vexatious, vehemence, against the open air; “by the piper o' Moses, I'm the stupidest man that ever peeled a phatie. Troth, I was so engaged, sir, that I forgot it; but I'll remember it to-night, plaise goodness.”

“Ah, Dandy,” exclaimed his master, smiling, “I fear you are a faithless swain. I thought Alley Mahon was at least the first on the list.”

“Troth, sir,” replied Dandy, “I believe she is, too. Poor Alley! By the way, sir, I beg your pardon, but I have news for you that I fear will give you a heavy heart.”

“How,” exclaimed his master, “how--what is it? Tell me instantly.”

“Miss Gourlay is ill, sir. She was goin' to be married to this lord; her father, I believe, had the day appointed, and she had given her consent.”

His master seized him by the collar with both hands, and peering into his eyes, whilst his own blazed with actual fire, he held him for a moment as if in a vise, exclaiming, “Her consent, you villain!” But, as if recollecting himself, he suddenly let him go, and said, calmly, “Go on with what you were about to say.”

“I have very little more to say, sir,” replied Dandy; “herself and Lord Dunroe is only waitin' till she gets well and then they're to be married?”

“You said she gave her consent, did you not!”

“No doubt of it, sir, and that, I believe, is what's breakin' her heart. However, it's not my affair to direct any one; still, if I was in somebody's shoes, I know the tune I'd sing.”

“And what tune would you sing?” asked his master.

Dandy sung the following stave, and, as he did it, he threw his comic eye upon his master with such humorous significance that the latter, although wrapped in deep reflection at the moment, on suddenly observing! it, could not avoid smiling:

“Will you list, and come with me, fair maid? Will you list, and come with me, fair maid? Will you list, and come with me, fair maid? And folly the lad with the white cockade?”

“If you haven't a good voice, sir, you could whisper the words into her ear, and as you're so near the mouth--hem--a word to the wise--then point to the chaise that you'll have standin' outside, and my life for you, there's an end to the fees o' the docther.”

His master, who had relapsed into thought before he concluded his advice, looked at him without seeming to have heard it. He then traversed the room several times, his chin supported by his finger and thumb, after which he seemed to have formed a resolution.

“Go, sir,” said he, “and put that letter to Father M'Mahon in the post-office. I shall not want you for some time.”

“Will I ordher a chaise, sir?” replied Dandy, with a serio-comic face.

One look from his master, however, sent him about his business; but the latter could hear him lilting the “White Cockade,” as he went down stairs.

“Now,” said he, when Dandy was gone, “can it be possible that she has at length given her consent to this marriage? Never voluntarily. It has been extorted by foul deceit and threatening, by some base fraud practised upon her generous and unsuspecting nature. I am culpable to stand tamely by and allow this great and glorious creature to be sacrificed to a bad ambition, and a worse man, without coming to the rescue. But, in the meantime, is this information true? Alas, I fear it is; for I know the unscrupulous spirit the dear girl has, alone and unassisted, to contend with. Yet if it be true, oh, why should she not have written to me? Why not have enabled me to come to her defence? I know not what to think. At all events, I shall, as a last resource, call upon her father. I shall explain to him the risk he runs in marrying his daughter to this man who is at once a fool and a scoundrel. But how can I do so? Birney has not yet returned from France, and I have no proofs on which to rest such serious allegations; nothing at present but bare assertions, which her father, in the heat and fury of his ambition, might not only disbelieve, but misinterpret. Be it so; I shall at least warn him, take it as he will; and if all else should fail, I will disclose to him my name and family, in order that he may know, at all events, that I am no impostor. My present remonstrance may so far alarm him as to cause the persecution against Lucy to be suspended for a time, and on' Birney's return, we shall, I trust, be able to speak more emphatically.”

He accordingly sent for a chaise, into which he stepped and ordered the driver to leave him at Sir Thomas Gourlay's and to wait there for him.

Lord Dunroe was at this period perfectly well aware that Birney's visit to France was occasioned by purposes that boded nothing favorable to his interests; and were it not for Lucy's illness, there is little doubt that the marriage would, ere now, have taken place. A fortnight had elapsed, and every day so completely filled him with alarm, that he proposed to Sir Thomas Gourlay the expediency of getting the license at once, and having the ceremony performed privately in her father's house. To this the father would have assented, were it not that he had taken it into his head that Lucy was rallying, and would soon be in a condition to go through it, in the parish church, at least. A few days, he hoped, would enable her to bear it; but if not, he was willing to make every concession to his lordship's wishes. Her delicate health, he said, would be a sufficient justification. At all events, both agreed that there could be no harm in having the license provided: and, accordingly, upon the morning of the stranger's visit, Sir Thomas and Lord Dunroe had just left the house of the former for the Ecclesiastical Court, in Henrietta street, a few minutes before his arrival. Sir Thomas was mistaken, however, in imagining that his daughter's health was improving, The doctor, indeed, had ordered carriage exercise essentially necessary; and Lucy being none of those weak and foolish girls, who sink under illness and calamity by an apathetic neglect of their health, or a criminal indifference to the means of guarding and prolonging the existence into which God has called them, left nothing undone on her part to second the efforts of the physician. Accordingly, whenever she was able to be up, or the weather permitted it, she sat in the carriage for an hour or two as it drove through some of the beautiful suburban scenery by which our city is surrounded.

The stranger, on the door being opened, was told by a servant, through mistake, that Sir Thomas Gourlay was within. The man then showed him to the drawing-room, where he said there was none but Miss Gourlay, he believed, who was waiting for the carriage to take her airing.

On hearing this piece of intelligence the stranger's heart began to palpitate, and his whole system, physical and spiritual, was disturbed by a general commotion that mounted to pain, and almost banished his presence of mind for the moment. He tapped at the drawing-room door, and a low, melancholy voice, that penetrated his heart, said, “Come in.” He entered, and there on a sofa sat Lucy before him. He did not bow--his heart was too deeply interested in her fate to remember the formalities of ceremony--but he stood, and fixed his eyes upon her with a long and anxious gaze. There she sat; but, oh! how much changed in appearance from what he had known her on every previous interview. Not that the change, whilst it spoke of sorrow and suffering, was one which diminished her beauty; on the contrary, it had only changed its character to something far more touching and impressive than health itself with all its blooming hues could have bestowed. Her features were certainly thinner, but there was visible in them a serene but mournful spirit--a voluptuous languor, heightened and spiritualized by purity and intellect into an expression that realized our notions rather of angelic beauty than of the loveliness of mere woman. To all this, sorrow had added a dignity so full of melancholy and commanding grace--a seriousness indicative of such truth and honor--as to make the heart of the spectator wonder, and the eye almost to weep on witnessing an association so strange and incomprehensible, as that of such beauty and evident goodness with sufferings that seem rather like crimes against purity and innocence, and almost tempt the weak heart to revolt against the dispensations of Providence.

When their eyes rested on each other, is it necessary to say that the melancholy position of Lucy was soon read in those large orbs that seemed about to dissolve into tears? The shock of the stranger's sudden and unexpected appearance, when taken in connection with the loss of him forever, and the sacrifice of her love and happiness, which, to save her father's life, she had so heroically and nobly made, was so strong, she felt unable to rise. He approached her, struck deeply by the dignified entreaty for sympathy and pardon that was in her looks.

“I am not well able to rise, dear Charles,” she said, breaking the short silence which had occurred, and extending her hand; “and I suppose you have come to reproach me. As for me, I have nothing to ask you for now--nothing to hope for but pardon, and that you will forget me henceforth. Will you be noble enough to forgive her who was once your Lucy, but who can never be so more?”

The dreadful solemnity, together with the pathetic spirit of tenderness and despair that breathed in these words, caused a pulsation in his heart and a sense of suffocation about his throat that for the moment prevented him from speaking. He seized her hand, which was placed passively in his, and as he put it to his lips, Lucy felt a warm tear or two fall upon it. At length he spoke:

“Oh, why is this, Lucy?” he said; “your appearance has unmanned me; but I see it and feel it all. I have been sacrificed to ambition, yet I blame you not.”

“No, dear Charles,” she replied; look upon me and then ask yourself who is the victim.”

“But what has happened?” he asked;

“What machinery of hell has been at work to reduce you to this? Fraud, deceit, treachery have done it. But, for the sake of God, let me know, as I said, what has occurred since our last interview to occasion this deplorable change--this rooted sorrow--this awful spirit of despair that I read in your face?

“Not despair, Charles, for I will never yield to that; but it is enough to say, that a barrier deep as the grave, and which only that can remove, is between us forever in this life.”

“You mean to say, then, that you never can be mine?”

“That, alas, is what I mean to say--what I must say.”

“But why, Lucy--why, dearest Lucy--for still I must call you so; what has occasioned this? I cannot understand it.”

She then related to him, briefly, but feelingly, the solemn promise, which, as our readers are aware of, she had given her father, and under what circumstances she had given it, together with his determination, unchanged and irrevocable, to force her to its fulfilment. Having heard it he paused for some time, whilst Lucy's eyes were fixed upon him, as if she expected a verdict of life or death from his lips.

“Alas, my dear Lucy,” he said; “noble girl! how can I quarrel with your virtues? You did it to save a father's life, and have left me nothing to reproach you with; but in increasing my admiration of you, my heart is doubly struck with anguish at the thought that I must lose you.”

“All, yes,” she replied; “but you must take comfort from the difference in our fates. You merely have to endure the pain of loss; but I--oh, dear Charles--what have I to encounter? You are not forced into a marriage with one who possesses not a single sentiment or principle of virtue or honor in common with yourself. No; you are merely--I deprived of a woman whom you love; but you are not forced into marriage with a woman, abandoned and unprincipled, whom you hate. Yes, Charles, you must take comfort, as I said, from the difference of our fates.”

“What, Lucy! do you mean to say I can take comfort from your misery? Am I so selfish or ungenerous as to thank God that you, whose happiness I prefer a thousand times to my own, are more miserable than I am? I thought you knew me better.”

“Alas, Charles,” she replied, “have compassion on me. The expression of these generous sentiments almost kills me. Assume some moral error--some semblance of the least odious vice--some startling blemish of character--some weakness that may enable me to feel that in losing you I have not so much to lose as I thought; something that may make the contrast between the wretch to whom I am devoted and yourself less repulsive.”

“Oh, I assure you, my dear Lucy,” he replied, with a melancholy smile, “that I have my errors, my weaknesses, my frailties, if that will comfort you; so many, indeed, that my greatest virtue, and that of which I am most proud, is my love for you.”

“Ah, Charles, you reason badly,” she replied, “for you prove yourself to be capable of that noble affection which never yet existed in a vicious heart. As for me, I know not on what hand to turn. It is said that when a person hanging by some weak branch from the brow of a precipice finds it beginning to give way, and that the plunge below is unavoidable, a certain courage, gained from despair, not only diminishes the terror of the fall, but relieves the heart by a bold and terrible feeling that for the moment banishes fear, and reconciles him to his fate.”

“It is a dreadful analogy, my dear Lucy; but you must take comfort. Who knows what a day may bring forth? You are not yet hanging upon the precipice of life.”

“I feel that I am,--Charles; and what is more, I see the depth to which I must be precipitated; but, alas, I possess none of that fearful courage that is said to reconcile one to the fall.”

“Lucy,” he replied, “into this gulf of destruction you shall never fall. Believe me, there is an invisible hand that will support you when you least expect it; a power that shapes our purposes, roughhew them as we will. I came to request an interview with your father upon this very subject. Have courage, dearest girl; friends are at work who I trust will ere long be enabled to place documents in his hands that will soon change his purposes. I grant that it is possible these documents may fail, or may not be procured; and in that case I know not how we are to act. I mention the probability of failure lest a future disappointment occasion such a shock as in your present state you may be incapable of sustaining; but still have hope, for the probability is in our favor.”

She shook her head incredulously, and replied, “You do not know the inflexible determination of my father on this point; neither can I conceive what documents you could place before him that would change his purpose.”

“I do not conceive that I am at liberty even to you, Lucy, to mention circumstances that may cast a stain upon high integrity and spotless innocence, so long as it is possible the proofs I speak of may fail. In the latter case, so far at least as the world is concerned, justice would degenerate into scandal, whilst great evil and little good must be the consequence. I think I am bound in honor not to place old age, venerable and virtuous, on the one hand, and unsuspecting innocence on the other, in a contingency that may cause them irreparable injury. I will now say, that if your happiness were not involved in the success or failure of our proceedings, I should have ceased to be a party in the steps we are taking until the grave had closed upon one individual at least, while unconscious of the shame that was to fall upon his family.”

Lucy looked upon him with a feeling of admiration which could not be misunderstood. “Dear Charles,” she exclaimed; “ever honorable--ever generous--ever considerate and unselfish; I do not of course understand your allusions; but I am confident that whatever you do will be done in a spirit worthy of yourself.”

The look of admiration, and why should we not add love, which Lucy had bestowed upon him was observed and felt deeply. Their eyes met, and, seizing her hand again, he whispered, in that low and tender voice which breathes the softest and most contagious emotion of the heart, “Alas, Lucy, you could not even dream how inexpressibly dear you are to me. Without you, life to me will possess no blessing. All that I ever conceived of its purest and most exalted enjoyments were centred in you, and in that sweet communion which I thought we were destined to hold together; but now, now--oh, my God, what a blank will my whole future existence be without you!”

“Charles--Charles,” she replied, but at the same time her eyes were swimming in tears, “spare me this; do not overload my heart with such an excess of sorrow; have compassion on me, for I am already too sensible of my own misery--too sensible of the happiness I have lost. I am here isolated and alone, with no kind voice to whisper one word of consolation to my unhappy heart, my poor maid only excepted; and I am often forced, in order to escape the pain of present reflections, to make a melancholy struggle once more to entrance myself in the innocent dreams of my early life. Yes, and I will confess it, to call back if I can those visions that gave the delicious hues of hope and happiness to the love which bound your heart and mine together. The illusion, however, is too feeble to struggle successfully with the abiding consciousness of my wretchedness, and I awake to a bitterness of anguish that is drinking up the fountains of my life, out of which life I feel, if this state continues, I shall soon pass away.”

On concluding, she wiped away the tears that were fast falling; and her lover was so deeply moved that he could scarcely restrain his own.

“There is one word, dearest Lucy,” he replied, “but though short it is full of comfort--hope.”

“Alas! Charles, I feel that it has been blotted out of the destiny of my life. I look for it; I search for it, but in vain. In this life I cannot find it; I say in this, because it is now, when all about me is darkness, and pain, and suffering, that I feel the consolation which arises from our trust in another. This consolation, however, though true, is sad, and the very joy it gives is melancholy, because it arises from that mysterious change which withdraws us from existence; and when it leads us to happiness we cannot forget that it is through the gate of the grave. But still it is a consolation, and a great one--to a sufferer like me, the only one--we must all die.”

Like a strain of soft but solemn music, these mournful words proceeded from her lips, from which they seemed to catch the touching sweetness which characterized them.

“I ought not to shed these tears,” she added; “nor ought you, dear Charles, to feel so deeply what I say as I perceive you do; but I know not how it is, I am impressed with a presentiment that this is probably our last meeting; and I confess that I am filled with a mournful satisfaction in speaking to you--in looking upon you--yes, I confess it; and I feel all the springs of tenderness opened, as it were, in my unhappy heart. In a short time,”--she added, and here she almost sobbed, “it will be a crime to think of you--to allow my very imagination to turn to your image; and I shall be called upon to banish that image forever from my heart, which I must strive to do, for to cherish it there will be wrong; but I shall struggle, for”--she added, proudly --“whatever my duty may be, I shall leave nothing undone to preserve my conscience free from its own reproaches.”

“Take comfort, Lucy,” he replied; “this will not--shall not be our last meeting. It is utterly impossible that such a creature as you are should be doomed to a fate so wretched. Do not allow them to hurry you into this odious marriage. Gain time, and we shall yet triumph.”

“Yes, Charles,” she replied; “but, then, misery often grows apathetic, and the will, wearied down and weakened, loses the power of resistance. I have more than once felt attacks of this kind, and I know that if they should observe it, I am lost. Oh, how little is the love of woman understood! And how little of life is known except through those false appearances that are certain to deceive all who look upon them as realities! Here am I, surrounded by every luxury that this world, can present, and how many thousands imagine me happy! What is there within the range of fashion and the compass of wealth that I cannot command? and yet amidst all this dazzle of grandeur I am more wretched than the beggar whom a morsel of food will make contented.”

“Resist this marriage, Lucy, for a time, that is all I ask,” replied her lover; “be firm, and, above all things, hope. You may ere long understand the force and meaning of my words. At present you cannot, nor is it in my power, with honor, to speak more plainly.”

“My father,” replied this high-minded and sensitive creature, “said some time ago, 'Is not my daughter a woman of honor?' Yes, Charles, I must be a woman of honor. But it is time you should go; only before you do, hear me. Henceforth we have each of us one great mutual task imposed upon us--a task the fulfilment of which is dictated alike by honor, virtue, and religion.”

“Alas, Lucy, what is that?”

“To forget each other. From the moment I become,” she sobbed aloud--“you know,” she added, “what I would say, but what I cannot--from that moment memory becomes a crime.”

“But an involuntary crime, my ever dear Lucy. As for my part,” he replied, vehemently, and with something akin to distraction, “I feel that is impossible, and that even were it possible, I would no more attempt to banish your image from my heart than I would to deliberately still its pulses. Never, never--such an attempt, such an act, if successful, would be a murder of the affections. No. Lucy, whilst one spark of mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him through the midnight storm--as a despairing soul would to the only good act of a wicked life that he could plead for his salvation.”

Whilst he spoke, Lucy kept her eyes fixed upon his noble features, now wrought up into an earnest but melancholy animation, and when he had concluded, she exclaimed, “And this is the man of whose love they would deprive me, whose very acknowledgment of it comes upon my spirit like an anthem of the heart; and I know not what I have done to be so tried; yet, as it is the will of God, I receive it for the best. Dear Charles, you must go; but you spoke of remonstrating with my father. Do not so; an interview would only aggravate him. And as you admit that certain documents are wanted to produce a change in his opinions, you may see clearly that until you produce them an expostulation would be worse than useless. On the contrary, it might precipitate matters and ruin all. Now go.”

“Perhaps you are right,” he replied, “as you always are; how can I go? How can I tear myself from you? Dearest, dearest Lucy, what a love is mine! But that is not surprising--who could love you with an ordinary passion?”

Apprehensive that her father might return, she rose up, but so completely had she been exhausted by the excitement of this interview that he was obliged to assist her.

“I hear the carriage,” said she; “it is at the door: will you ring for my maid? And now, Charles, as it is possible that we must meet no more, say, before you go, that you forgive me.”

“There is everything in your conduct to be admired and loyed, my dearest Lucy; but nothing to be forgiven.”

“Is it possible,” she said, as if in communion with herself, “that we shall never meet, never speak, never, probably, look upon each other more?”

Her lover observed that her face became suddenly pale, and she staggered a little, after which she sank and would have fallen had he not supported her in his arms. He had already rung for Alley Mahon, and there was nothing for it but to place Lucy once more upon the sofa, whither he was obliged to carry her, for she had fainted. Having placed her there, it became necessary to support her head upon his bosom, and in doing so--is it in human nature to be severe upon him?--he rapturously kissed her lips, and pressed her to his heart in a long, tender, and melancholy embrace. The appearance of her maid, however, who always accompanied her in the carriage, terminated this pardonable theft, and after a few words of ordinary conversation they separated.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXVII. Dandy's Visit to Summerfield Cottage

--Where he Makes a most Ungallant Mistake--Returns with Tidings of both Mrs. Norton and Fenton--and Generously Patronizes his Master

On the morning after this interview the stranger was waited on by Birney, who had returned from France late on the preceding night.

“Well, my friend,” said he, after they had shaken hands, “I hope you are the bearer of welcome intelligence!”

The gloom and disappointment that were legible in this man's round, rosy, and generally good-humored countenance were observed, however, by the stranger at a second glance.

“But how is this?” he added; “you are silent, and I fear, now that I look at you a second time, that matters have not gone well with you. For God's sake, however, let me know; for I am impatient to hear the result.”

“All is lost,” replied Birney; “and I fear we have been outgeneralled. The clergyman is dead, and the book in which the record of her death was registered has disappeared, no one knows how. I strongly suspect, however, that your opponent is at the bottom of it.”

“You mean Dunroe?”

“I do; that scoundrel Norton, at once his master and his slave, accompanied by a suspicious-looking fellow, whose name I discovered to be Mulholland, were there before us, and I fear, carried their point by securing the register, which I have no doubt has been by this time reduced to ashes.”

“In that case, then,” replied the stranger, despondingly, “it's all up with us.”

“Unless,” observed Birney, “you have been more successful at home than I have been abroad. Any trace of Mrs. Norton?”

“None whatsoever. But, my dear Birney, what you tell me is surprisingly mysterious. How could Dunroe become aware of the existence of these documents? or, indeed, of our proceedings at all? And who is this Mulholland you speak of that accompanied him?”

“I know nothing whatever about him,” replied Birney, “except that he is a fellow of dissolute appearance, with sandy hair, not ill-looking, setting aside what is called a battered look, and a face of the most consummate effrontery.”

“I see it all,” replied the other. “That drunken scoundrel M'Bride has betrayed us, as far, at least, as he could. The fellow, while his conduct continued good, was in my confidence, as far as a servant ought to be. In this matter, however, he did not know all, unless, indeed, by inference from the nature of the document itself, and from knowing the name of the family whose position it affected. How it might have affected them, however, I don't think he knew.”

“But how do you know that this Mulholland is that man?”

“From your description of him I am confident there can be no mistake about it--not the slightest; he must have changed his name purposely on this occasion; and, I dare say, Dunroe has liberally paid him for his treachery.”

“But what is to be done now?” asked Birney; “here we are fairly at fault.”

“I have seen Miss Gourlay,” replied the other, “and if it were only from motives of humanity, we must try, by every means consistent with honor, to stop or retard her marriage with Dunroe.”

“But how are we to do so?”

“I know not at present; but I shall think of it. This is most unfortunate. I declare solemnly that it was only in so far as the facts we were so anxious to establish might have enabled us to prevent this accursed union, that I myself felt an interest in our success. Miss Gourlay's happiness was my sole motive of action.”

“I believe you, sir,” replied Birney; “but in the meantime we are completely at a stand. Chance, it is true, may throw something in our way; but, in the present position of circumstances, chance, nay, all the chances are against us.”

“It is unfortunately too true,” replied the stranger; “there is not a single opening left for us; we are, on the contrary, shut out completely in every direction. I shall write, however, to a lady who possesses much influence with Miss Gourlay; but, alas, to what purpose? Miss Gourlay herself has no influence whatever; and, as to her father, he does not live who could divert him from his object. His vile ambition only in the matter of his daughter could influence him, and it will do so to her destruction, for she cannot survive this marriage long.”

“You look thin, and a good deal careworn,” observed Birney, “which, indeed, I am sorry to see. Constant anxiety, however, and perpetual agitation of spirits will wear any man down. Well, I must bid you good morning; but I had almost forgotten to inquire about poor Fenton. Any trace of him during my absence?”

“Not the slightest. In fact, every point is against us. Lady Gourlay has relapsed into her original hopelessness, or nearly so, and I myself am now more depressed than I have ever been. Parish register, documents, corrupt knaves, and ungrateful traitors--perish all the machinery of justice on the one hand, and of villainy on the other; only let us succeed in securing Miss Gourlay's happiness, and I am contented. That, now and henceforth, is the absorbing object of my life. Let her be happy; let her be but happy--and this can only be done by preventing her union with this heartless young man, whose principal motive to it is her property.”

Birney then took his departure, leaving his friend in such a state of distress, and almost of despair, on Lucy's account, as we presume our readers can very sufficiently understand, without any further assistance from us. He could not, however, help congratulating himself on his prudence in withholding from Miss Gourlay the sanguine expectations which he himself had entertained upon the result of Birney's journey to France. Had he not done so, he knew that she would have participated in his hopes, and, as a natural consequence, she must now have had to bear this deadly blow of disappointment, probably the last cherished hope of her heart; and under such circumstances, it is difficult to say what its effect upon her might have been. This was now his only satisfaction, to which we may add the consciousness that he had not, by making premature disclosures, been the means of compromising the innocent.

After much thought and reflection upon the gloomy position in which both he himself and especially Lucy were placed, he resolved to write to Mrs. Mainwaring upon the subject; although at the moment he scarcely knew in what terms to address her, or what steps he could suggest to her, as one feeling a deep interest in Miss Gourlay's happiness. At length, after much anxious rumination, he wrote the following short letter, or rather note, more with a view of alarming Mrs. Mainwaring into activity, than of dictating to her any line of action as peculiarly suited to the circumstances.

“Madam,--The fact of Miss Gourlay having taken refuge with you as her friend, upon a certain occasion that was, I believe, very painful to that young lady, I think sufficiently justifies me in supposing that you feel a warm interest in her fate. For this reason, therefore, I have taken the liberty of addressing you with reference to her present situation. If ever a human being required the aid and consolation of friendship, Miss Gourlay now does; and I will not suppose that a lady whom she honored with her esteem and affection, could be capable of withholding from her such aid and such consolation, in a crisis so deplorable. You are probably aware, madam, that she is on the point of being sacrificed, by a forced and hated union, to the ambitious views of her father; but you could form a very slight conception indeed of the horror with which she approaches the gulf that is before her. Could there be no means devised by which this unhappy young lady might be enabled with honor to extricate herself from the wretchedness with which she is encompassed? I beg of you, madam, to think of this; there is little time to be lost. A few days may seal her misery forever. Her health and spirits are fast sinking, and she is beginning to entertain apprehensions that that apathy which proceeds from the united influence of exhaustion and misery, may, in some unhappy moment, deprive her of the power of resistance, even for a time. Madam, I entreat that you will either write to her or see her; that you will sustain and console her as far as in you lies, and endeavor, if possible, to throw some obstruction in the way of this accursed marriage; whether through your influence with herself, or her father, matters not. I beg, madam, to apologize for the liberty I have taken in addressing you upon this painful but deeply important subject, and I appeal to yourself whether it is possible to know Miss Gourlay, and not to feel the deepest interest in everything that involves her happiness or misery.

“I have the honor to be, madam,

“Your obedient, faithful servant, and Her Sincere Friend.

“P. S.--I send this letter by my servant, as I am anxious that it should reach no hands, and be subjected to no eyes, but your own; and I refer you to Miss Gourlay herself, who will satisfy you as to the honor and purity of my motives in writing it.”

Having sealed this communication, the stranger rang for Dulcimer, who made his appearance accordingly, and received his instructions for its safe delivery.

“You must deliver this note, Dandy,” said he, “to the lady to whom Miss Gourlay and her maid drove, the morning you took the unwarrantable liberty of following them there.”

“And for all that,” replied Dandy, “it happens very luckily that I chance, for that very raison, to know now where to find her.”

“It does so, certainly,” replied his master. “Here is money for you--take a car, or whatever kind of vehicle you prefer. Give this note into her own hand, and make as little delay as you can.”

“Do you expect an answer, sir?” replied Dandy; “and am I to wait for one, or ask for one?”

“I am not quite certain of that,” said the other; “it is altogether discretionary with her. But there can be no harm in asking the question, at all events. Any other Mrs. Norton in the way, Dandy?”

“Deuce a once, sir. I have sifted the whole city, and, barrin' the three dozen I made out already, I can't find hilt or hair of another. Faith, sir, she ought to be worth something when she's got, for I may fairly say she has cost me trouble enough at any rate, the skulkin' thief, whoever she is; and me to lose my hundre' pounds into the bargain--bad scran to her!”

“Only find me the true Mrs. Norton,” said his master, “and the hundred pounds are yours, and for Fenton fifty. Be off, now, lose no time, and bring me her answer if she sends any.”

Dandy's motions were all remarkably rapid, and we need not say that he allowed no grass to grow under his feet while getting over his journey. On arriving at Summerfield Cottage, he learned that Mrs. Mainwaring was in the garden; and on stating that he had a letter to deliver into her own hands, that lady desired him to be brought in, as she was then in conversation with her daughter, who had been compelled at length to fly from the brutality of her husband, and return once more to the protection of her mother's roof. On opening the letter and looking at it, she started, and turning to her daughter said,

“You must excuse me, my dear Maria, for a few moments, but don't forget to finish what you were telling me about this unfortunate young man, Fenton, as he, you say, calls himself, from Ballytrain.”

“Hello!” thought Dandy, “here's a discovery. By the elevens, I'll hould goold to silver that this is poor Fenton that disappeared so suddenly.”

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said he, addressing Mrs. Scarman as an unmarried lady, as he perceived that she was the person from whom he could receive the best intelligence on the subject; “I hope it's no offence, miss, to ax a question?”

“None, certainly, my good man,” replied her mother, “provided it be a proper one.”

“I think, miss,” he continued, “that you were mentioning something to this lady about a young man named Fenton, from Ballytrain?”

“I was,” replied Mrs. Scarman, “certainly; but what interest can you have in him?”

“If he's the young man I mane,” continued Dandy, “he's not quite steady in the head sometimes.”

“If he were, he would not be in his present abode,” replied the lady.

“And pray, miss--beg pardon again,” said Dandy, with the best bow and scrape he could manage; “pray, miss, might I be so bould as to ask where that is?”

Mrs. Scarman looked at her mother. “Mamma,” said she, “but, bless me! what is the matter? you are in tears.”

“I will tell you by and by, my dear Maria,” replied her mother; “but you were going to ask me something--what was it?”

“This man,” replied her daughter, “wishes to know the abode of the person I was speaking about.”

“Pray, what is his motive? What is your motive, my good man, for asking such a question?”

“Bekaise, ma'am,” replied Dandy, “I happen to know a gentleman who has been for some time on the lookout for him, and wishes very much to find where he is. If it be the young man I spake of, he disappeared some three or four months ago from the town of Ballytrain.”

“Well,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, with her usual good-sense and sagacity, “as I know not what your motive for asking such a question is, I do not think this lady ought to answer it; but if the gentleman himself is anxious to know, let him see her; and upon giving satisfactory reasons for the interest he takes in him, he shall be informed of his present abode. You must rest satisfied with this. Go to the kitchen and say to the servant that I desired her to give you refreshment.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” replied Dandy; “faith, that's a lively message, anyhow, and one that I feel great pleasure in deliverin'. This Wicklow air's a regular cutler; it has sharpened my teeth all to pieces; and if the cook 'ithin shows me good feedin' I'll show her something in the shape of good atin'. I'm a regular man of talent at my victuals, ma'am, an' was often tould I might live to die an alderman yet, plaise God; many thanks agin, ma'am.” So saying, Dandy proceeded at a brisk pace to the kitchen.

“That communication, mamma,” said Mrs. Scarman, after Dandy had left them, “has distressed you.”

“It has, my child. Poor Miss Gourlay is in a most wretched state. This I know is, from her lover. In fact, they will be the death--absolutely and beyond a doubt--the death of this admirable and most lovely creature. But what can I do? Her father will not permit me to visit her, neither will he permit her to correspond with me, I have already written to him on the risk to which he submits his daughter in this ominous marriage, but I received neither notice of, nor reply to my letter. Oh, no; the dear girl is unquestionably doomed. I thinks however, I shall write a few lines in reply to this,” she added, “but, alas the day! they cannot speak of comfort.”

Whilst she is thus engaged, we will take, a peep at the on-goings of Dandy and Nancy Gallaher, in the kitchen, where, in pursuance of his message our bashful valet was corroborating, by very able practice, the account which he had given of the talents he had eulogized so justly.

“Well, in troth,” said he, “but, first and foremost, I haven't the pleasure of knowin' yer name.”

“Nancy Gallaher's my name, then,” she replied.

“Ah,” said Dandy, suspending the fork and an immense piece of ham on the top of it at the Charybdis which he had opened to an unusual extent to receive it; “ah, ma'am, it wasn't always that, I'll go bail. My counthrymen knows the value of such a purty woman not to stamp some of their names upon her. Not that you have a married look, either, any more than myself; you're too fresh for that, now that I look at you again.”

A certain cloud, which, as Dandy could perceive, was beginning to darken her countenance, suggested the quick turn of his last observation. The countenance, however, cleared again, and she replied, “It is my name, and what is more, I never changed it. I was hard to plaise--and I am hard to plaise, and ever an' always had a dread of gettin' into bad company, especially when I knew that the same bad company was to last for life.”

“An ould maid, by the Rock of Cashel,” said Dandy, to himself.

“Blood alive, I wondher has she money; but here goes to thry. Ah, Nancy,” he proceeded, “you wor too hard to plaise; and now, that you have got money like myself, nothing but a steady man, and a full purse, will shoot your convanience--isn't that pure gospel, now, you good lookin' thief?”

Nancy's face was now like a cloudless sky. “Well,” she replied, “maybe there's truth in that, and maybe there's not; but I hope you are takin' care of yourself? That's what I always did and ever will, plaise God. How do you like the ham?”

“Divil a so well dressed a bit o' ham ever I ett--it melts into one's mouth like a kiss from a purty woman. Troth, Nancy, I think I'm kissing you ever since I began to ait it.”

“Get out,” said Nancy, laughing; “troth, you're a quare one; but you know our Wickla' hams is famous.”

“And so is your Wicklow girls,” replied Dandy; “but for my part, I'd sooner taste their lips than the best hams that ever were ett any day.”

“Well, but,” said Nancy, “did you ever taste our bacon? bekaise, if you didn't, lave off what you're at, and in three skips I'll get you a rasher and eggs that'll make you look nine ways at once. Here, throw that by, it's could, and I'll get you something hot and comfortable.”

“Go on,” replied Dandy; “I hate idleness. Get the eggs and rasher you spake of, and while you're doin' it I'll thry and amuse myself wid what's before me. Industhry's the first of virtues, Nancy, and next to that comes perseverance; I defy you in the mane time to do a rasher as well as you did this ham--hoeh--och--och. God bless me, a bit was near stickin' in my throat. Is your wather good here? and the raison why I ax you is, that I'm the devil to plaise in wather; and on that account I seldom take it without a sup o' spirits to dilute it, as the docthors say, for, indeed, that's the way it agrees with me best. It's a kind of family failin' with us--devil a one o' my blood ever could look a glass of mere wather in the face without blushin'.”

Dandy was now upon what they call the simplicity dodge; that is to say, he affected that character of wisdom for which certain individuals, whose knowledge of life no earthly experience ever can improve, are so extremely anxious to get credit. Every word he uttered was accompanied by an oafish grin, so ludicrously balanced between simplicity and cunning, that Nancy, who had been half her life on the lookout for such a man, and who knew that this indecision of expression was the characteristic of the tribe with which she classed him, now saw before her the great dream of her heart realized.

“Well, in troth,” she replied, “you are a quare man; but still it would be too bad to make you blush for no stronger raison than mere wather. So, in the name o' goodness, here's a tumbler of grog,” she added, filling him out one on the instant, “and as you're so modest, you must only drink it and keep your countenance; it'll prepare you, besides, for the rasher and eggs; and, by the same token, here's an ould candle-box that's here the Lord knows how long; but, faix, now it must help to do the rasher. Come then; if you are stronger than I am, show your strength, and pull it to pieces, for you see I can't.”

It was one of those flat little candle-boxes made of deal, with which every one in the habit of burning moulds is acquainted. Dandy took it up, and whilst about to pull it to pieces, observed written on a paper label, in a large hand, something between writing and print, “Mrs. Norton, Summerfield Cottage, Wicklow.”

“What is this?” said he; “what name is this upon it? Let us see, 'Mrs. Norton, Summerfield Cottage, Wicklow!' Who the dickens is Mrs. Norton?”

“Why, my present mistress,” replied Nancy; “Mr. Mainwaring is her second husband, and her name was Mrs. Norton before she married him.”

“Norton,” said Dandy, whose heart was going at full speed, with a hope that he had at length got into the right track, “it's a purty name in troth. Arra, Nancy, do you know was your misthress ever in France?”

“Ay, was she,” replied Nancy. “Many a year maid to--let me see--what's this the name is? Ay! Cullamore. Maid to the wife of Lord Cullamore. So I was tould by Alley Mahon, a young woman that was here on a visit to me.”

Dandy put the glass of grog to his mouth, and having emptied it, sprung to his feet, commenced an Irish jig through the kitchen, in a spirit so outrageously whimsical--buoyant, mad, hugging the box all the time in his arms, that poor Nancy looked at him with a degree of alarm and then of jealousy which she could not conceal.

“In the name of all that's wonderful,” she exclaimed, “what's wrong--what's the matter? What's the value of that blackguard box that you make the mistake about in huggin' it that way? Upon my conscience, one would think you're in a desolate island. Remember, man alive, that you're among flesh and blood like your own, and that you have friends, although the acquaintance isn't very long, I grant, that wishes you betther than to see you makin' a sweetheart of a tallow-box. What the sorra is that worth?”

“A hundred pounds, my darlin'--a hundred pounds--bravo, Dandy--well done, brave Dulcimer--wealthy Nancy. Faith, you may swear upon the frying-pan there that I've the cash, and sure 'tis yourself I was lookin' out for.”

“I don't think, then, that ever I resembled a candle-box in my life,” she replied, rather annoyed that the article in question came in for such a prodigality of his hugs, kisses, and embraces, of all shapes and characters.

“Well, Nancy,” said he, “charming Nancy, you're my fancy, but in the meantime I have the honor and pleasure to bid you a good day.”

“Why, where are you goin'?” asked the woman. “Won't you wait for the rasher?”

“Keep it hot, charming Nancy, till I come back; I'm just goin' to take a constitutional walk.” So saying, Dandy, with the candle-box under his arm, darted out of the kitchen, and without waiting to know whether there was an answer to be brought back or not, mounted his jarvey, and desiring the man to drive as if the devil and all his imps were at their heels, set off at full speed for the city.

“Bad luck to you for a scamp,” exclaimed the indignant cook, shouting after him; “is that the way you trate a decent woman after gettin' your skinful of the best? Wait till you put your nose in this kitchen again, an' it'a different fare you'll get.”

On reaching his master's hotel, Dandy went upstairs, where he found him preparing to go out. He had just sealed a note, and leaning himself back on the chair, looked at his servant with a good deal of surprise, in consequence of the singularity of Ms manner. Dandy, on the other hand, took the candle-box from under his arm, and putting it flat on the table, with the label downwards, placed his two hands upon it, and looked the other right in the face; after which he closed one eye, and gave him a very knowing wink.

“What do you mean, you scoundrel, by this impudence?” exclaimed his master, although at the same time he could not avoid laughing; for, in truth, he felt a kind of presentiment, grounded upon Dandy's very assurance, that he was the bearer of some agreeable intelligence. “What do you mean, sirra? You're drunk, I think.”

“Hi tell you what, sir,” replied Dandy, “from this day out, upon my soul, I'll patronize you like a man as I am; that is to say, provided you continue to deserve it.”

“Come, sirra, you're at your buffoonery again, or else you're drunk, as I said. Did the lady send any reply?”

“Have you any cash to spare?” replied Dandy. “I want to invest a thrifle in the funds.”

“What can this impudence mean, sirra?” asked the other, sadly puzzled to understand his conduct. “Why do you not reply to me? Did the lady send an answer?”

“Most fortunate of all masthers,” replied Dandy, “in havin' such a servant; the lady did send an answer.”

“And where is it, sirra?”

“There it is!” replied the other, shoving the candle-box triumphantly over to him, The stranger looked steadily at him, and was beginning to lose his temper, for he took it now for granted that his servant was drunk.

“I shall dismiss you instantly, sirra,” he said, “if you don't come to your senses.”

“I suppose so,” replied the other, still maintaining his cool, unabashed effrontery. “I dare say you will, just after I've made a man of you--changed you from nothing to something, or, rather, from nobody--for devil a much more you were up to the present time yet--to somebody. In the meantime, read the lady's answer, if you plaise.”

“Where is it, you impudent knave? I see no note--no answer.”

“Troth, sir, I am afeared many a time you were ornamented with the dunce's cap in your school-days, and well, I'll be bound, you became it. Don't I say the answer's before you, there?”

“There is nothing here, you scoundrel, but a deal box.”

“Eight, sir; and a deal of intelligence can it give you, if you have the sense to find it out. Now, listen, sir. So long as you live, ever and always examine both sides of every subject that comes before you, even if it was an ould deal box.”

His master took the hint, and instantly turning the box, read to his astonishment, Mrs. Norton, Summerfield pottage, Wicklow, and then looked at Dandy for an explanation. The latter nodded with his usual easy confidence, and proceeded, “It's all right, sir--she was in France--own maid to Lady Cullamore--came home and got married--first to a Mr. Norton, and next to a person named Mainwarin': and there she is, the true Mrs. Norton, safe and sound for you, in Summerfield Cottage, under the name of Mrs. Mainwarin'.”

“Dandy,” said his master, starting to his feet, “I forgive you a thousand times. Throw that letter in the post-office. You shall have the money, Dandy, more, perhaps, than I promised, provided this is the lady; but I cannot doubt it. I am now going to Mr. Birney; but, stay, let us be certain. How did you become acquainted with these circumstances?”

Dandy gave him his authority; after which his master put on his hat, and was about proceeding out, when the former exclaimed, “Hello-sir, where are you goin'?”

“To see Birney, I have already told you.”

“Come, come,” replied his man, “take your time--be steady, now--be cool--and listen to what your friend has to say to you.”

“Don't trifle with me now, Dandy; I really can't bear it.”

“Faith, but you must, though. There's one act I patronized you in; now, how do you know, as I'm actin' the great man, but I can pathronize you in another?”

“How is that? For heaven's sake, don't trifle with me; every day, every hour, every moment, is precious, and may involve the happiness of--”

“I see, sir,” replied this extraordinary valet, with an intelligent nod, “but, still, fair and aisy goes far in a day. There's no danger of her, you know--don't be unaisy. Fenton, sir--ehem--Fenton, I say--Fenton and fifty I say.”

“Fenton and a hundred, Dandy, if there's an available trace of him.”

“I don't know what you call an available trace,” replied Dandy, “but I can send you to a lady who knows where he is, and where you can find him.”

The stranger returned from the door, and sitting down again covered his face with his hands, as if to collect himself; at length he said, “This is most extraordinary; tell me all about it.”

Dandy related that with which the reader is already acquainted, and did so with such an air of comic gravity and pompous superiority, that his master, now in the best possible spirits, was exceedingly amused.

“Well, Dandy,” said he, “if your information respecting Fenton prove correct, reckon upon another hundred, instead of the fifty I mentioned. I suppose I may go now?” he added, smiling.

Dandy, still maintaining his gravity, waved his hand with an air of suitable authority, intimating that the other had permission to depart. On going out, however, he said, “I beg your pardon, sir, but while you're abroad, I'd take it as a favor if you'd find out the state o' the funds. Of course, I'll be investin'; and a man may as well do things with his eyes open--may as well examine both sides o' the candle-box, you know. You may go, sir.”

“Well,” thought the stranger to himself, as he literally went on his way rejoicing toward Birney's office, “no man in this life should ever yield to despair. Here was I this morning encompassed by doubt and darkness, and I may almost say by despair itself. Yet see how easily and naturally the hand of Providence, for it is nothing less, has changed the whole tenor of my existence. Everything is beginning not only to brighten, but to present an appearance of order, by which we shall, I trust, be enabled to guide ourselves through the maze of difficulty that lies, or that did lie, at all events, before us. Alas, if the wretched suicide, who can see nothing but cause of despondency about him and before him, were to reflect upon the possibility of what only one day might evolve from the ongoing circumstances of life, how many would that wholesome reflection prevent from the awful crime of impatience at the wisdom of God, and a want of confidence in his government! I remember the case of an unhappy young man who plunged into a future life, as it were, to-day, who, had he maintained his part until the next, would have found himself master of thousands. No; I shall never despair. I will in this, as in every other virtue, imitate my beloved Lucy, who said, that to whatever depths of wretchedness life might bring her, she would never yield to that.”

“Good news, Birney!” he exclaimed, on entering that gentleman's office; “charming intelligence! Both are found at last.”

“Explain yourself, my dear sir,” replied the other; “how is it? What has happened? Both of whom?”

“Mrs. Norton and Fenton.”

He then explained the circumstances as they had been explained to himself by Dandy; and Birney seemed gratified certainly, but not so much as the stranger thought he ought to have been.

“How is this?” he asked; “this discovery, this double discovery, does not seem to give you the satisfaction which I had expected, it would?”

“Perhaps not,” replied the steady man of law, “but I am highly gratified, notwithstanding, provided everything you tell me turns out to be correct. But even then, I apprehend that the testimony of this Mrs. Norton, unsupported as it is by documentary evidence, will not be: sufficient for our purpose. It will require corroboration, and how are we to corroborate it?”

“If it will enable us to prevent the marriage,” replied the other, “I am satisfied.”

“That is very generous and disinterested, I grant,” said Birney, “and what few are capable of; but still there are forms of law and principles of common justice to be observed and complied with; and these, at present, stand in our way for want of the documentary evidence I speak of.”

“What then ought our next step to be?--but I suppose I can anticipate you--to see Mrs. Norton.”

“Of course, to see Mrs. Norton; and I propose that we start immediately. There is no time to be lost about it. I shall get on my boots, and change my dress a little, and, with this man of yours to guide us, we shall be on the way to Summerfield Cottage in half-an-hour.”

“Should I not communicate this intelligence to Lady Gourlay?” said the stranger. “It will restore her to life; and surely the removal of only one day's sorrow such as lies at her heart becomes a duty.”

“But suppose our information should prove incorrect, into what a dreadful relapse would you plunge her then!”

“On, very true--very true, indeed: that is well thought of; let us first see that there is no mistake, and afterwards we can proceed with confidence.”

Poor Lucy, unconscious that the events we have related had taken place, was passing an existence of which every day brought round to her nothing but anguish and misery. She now not only refused to see her brother on any occasion, or under any circumstances, but requested an interview with her father, in order to make him acquainted with the abominable principles, by the inculcation of which, as a rule of life and conduct, he had attempted to corrupt her. Her father having heard this portion of her complaint, diminished in its heinousness as it necessarily was by her natural modesty, appeared very angry, and swore roundly at the young scapegrace, as he called him.

“But the truth is, Lucy,” he added, “that however wrong and wicked he may have been, and was, yet we cannot be over severe on him. He has had no opportunities of knowing better, and of course he will mend. I intend to lecture him severely for uttering such principles to you; but, on the other hand, I know him to be a shrewd, keen young fellow, who promises well, notwithstanding. In truth, I like him, scamp as he is; and I believe that whatever is bad in him--”

“Whatever is bad in him! Why, papa, there is nothing good in him.”

“Tut, Lucy; I believe, I say, that whatever is bad in him he has picked up from the kind of society he mixed with.”

“Papa,” she replied, “it grieves me to hear you, sir, palliate the conduct of such a person--to become almost the apologist of principles so utterly fiendish. You know that I am not and never have been in the habit of using ungenerous language against the absent. So far as I am concerned, he has violated all the claims of a brother--has foregone all title to a sister's love; but that is not all--I believe him to be so essentially corrupt and vicious in heart and soul, so thoroughly and blackly diabolical in his principles--moral I cannot call them--that I would stake my existence he is some base and plotting impostor, in whose veins there flows not one single drop of my pure-hearted mother's blood. I therefore warn you, sir, that he is an impostor, with, perhaps, a dishonorable title to your name, but none at all to your property.”

“Nonsense, you foolish girl. Is he not my image?”

“I admit he resembles you, sir, very much, and I do not deny that he may be”--she paused, and alternately became pale and red by turns--“what I mean to say, sir, is what I have already said, that he is not my mother's son, and that although he may be privileged to bear your name, he has no claim on either your property or title. Does it not strike you, sir, that it might be to make way for this person that my legitimate brother was removed long ago? And I have also heard yourself say frequently, while talking of my brother, how extremely like mamma and me he was.”

“There is no doubt he was,” replied her father, somewhat struck by the force of her observations; “and I was myself a good deal surprised at the change which must have taken place in him since his childhood. However, you know he accounted for this himself very fairly and very naturally.”

“Very ingeniously, at least,” she replied; “with more of ingenuity, I fear, than truth. Now, sir, hear me further. You are aware that I never liked those Corbets, who have been always so deeply, and, excuse me, sir, so mysteriously in your confidence.”

“Yes, Lucy, I know you never did; but that is a prejudice you inherited from your mother.”

“I appeal to your own conscience, sir, whether mamma's prejudice against them was not just and well founded. Yet it was not so much prejudice as the antipathy which good bears to evil, honesty to fraud, and truth to darkness, dissimulation, and falsehood. I entreat you, then, to investigate this matter, papa; for as sure as I have life, so certainly was my dear brother removed, in order, at the proper time, to make way for this impostor. You know not, sir, but there may be a base and inhuman murder involved in this matter--nay, a double murder--that of my cousin, too; yes, and the worst of all murders, the murder of the innocent and defenceless. As a man, as a magistrate, but, above all, a thousand times, as a father--as the father and uncle of the very two children that have disappeared, it becomes your duty to examine into this dark business thoroughly.”

“I have no reason to suspect the Corbets, Lucy. I have ever found them faithful to me and to my interests.”

“I know, sir, you have ever found them obsequious and slavish and ready to abet you in many acts which I regret that you ever committed. There is the case of that unfortunate man, Trailcudgel, and many similar ones; were they not as active and cheerful! in bearing out your very harsh orders against him and others of your tenantry, as if they I had been advancing the cause of humanity?”

“Say the cause of justice, if you please, Lucy--the rights of a landlord.”

“But, papa, if the unfortunate tenantry by whose toil and labor we live in affluence and; luxury do not find a friend in their landlord, who is, by his relation to them, their natural protector, to whom else in the wide world can they turn? This, however, is not the subject on which I wish to speak. I do believe that Thomas Corbet is deep, designing, and vindictive. He was always a close, dark man, without either cheerfulness or candor. Beware, therefore, of him and of his family. Nay, he has a capacity for being dangerous; for it strikes me, sir, that his intellect is as far above his position in life as his principles are beneath it.”

There was much in what Lucy said that forced itself upon her father's reflection, much that startled him, and a good deal that gave him pain. He paused for a considerable time after she had ceased to speak, and said,

“I will think of these matters, Lucy. I will probably do more; and if I find that they have played me foul by imposing upon me--” He paused abruptly, and seemed embarrassed, the truth being that he knew and felt how completely he was in their power.

“Now, papa,” said Lucy, “after having heard my opinion of this young man--after the wanton outrage upon all female delicacy and virtue of which he has been guilty, I trust you will not in future attempt to obtrude him upon me. I will not see him, speak to him, nor acknowledge him; and such, let what may happen, is my final determination.”

“So far, Lucy, I will accede to your wishes. I shall take care that he troubles you with no more wicked exhortations.”

“Thank you, dear papa; this is kind, and I feel it so.”

“Now,” said her father, after she had withdrawn, “how am I to act? It is not impossible but there may be much truth in what she says. I remember, however, the death of the only son that could possibly be imposed on me in the sense alluded to her. He surely does not live; or if he does, the far-sighted sagacity which made the account of his death a fraud upon my credulity, for such selfish and treacherous purposes, is worthy of being concocted in the deepest pit of hell. Yet that some one of them has betrayed me, is evident from the charges brought against me by this stranger to whom Lucy is so devotedly attached, and which charges Thomas Corbet could not clear up. If one of these base but dexterous villains, or if the whole gang were to outwit me, positively I could almost blow my very brains out, for allowing myself, after all, to become their dupe and plaything. I will think of it, however. And again, there is the likeness; there does seem to be a difficulty in that; for, beyond all doubt, my legitimate child, up until his disappearance, did not bear in his countenance a single feature of mine but bore a strong resemblance to his mother; whereas this Tom is my born image! Yet I like him. He has all my points; knows the world, and despises it as much as I do. He did not know Lucy, however, or he would have kept his worldly opinions to himself. It is true he said very little but what we see about us as the regulating principles of life every day; but Lucy, on the other hand, is no every-day girl, and will not receive such doctrines, and I am glad of it They may do very well in a son; but somehow one shudders at the contemplation of their existence in the heart and principles of a daughter. Unfortunately, however I am in the power of these Corbets, and I feel that exposure at this period, the crisis of my daughter's marriage, would not only frustrate my ambition for her, but occasion my very death, I fear. I know not how it is, but I think if I were to live my life over again, I would try a different course.”

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