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not lie in the church-yard beside of him, until he'd make the Colonel smell powder. But Master Mick, dear, are ye shure he'll stand

it ?"

"Quite certain," said I.

"Begor! I hope so, from my heart; and sure he ought, for divil a stouter woman ever stepped than his own mother. It would do your heart good if you saw her the day she chased Tim Larkin the cess collecthur, but your honour was away then. Tim kem to look for the cess when her honour was from home, and not being paid at onst, the spalpeen took two of the cows and clapped thim into pound. Well, when the misthress kem home and heard it-there's where it was. By gorra! she loaded a case of pistols, and wint in purshuit: when the poundkeeper seen her coming down the hill, he turned the cattle out on the road for fear she'd think he had any hand in it; but she chased Tim into his own house, and fired two shots over him. She didn't kill him ; but what if she did? shure he desarved it, the rascal, for putting a raal born and bred lady's cows into a pound. I often wondehr'd how the masther was so shy as they say he is, and I kem afore ye jest to tell ye that if ye were at all afeard of how he'd do, I might be beside him and hould him on to it if it was necessary."

Having assured Thady that I did not think he would be required to hold Dillon to his fight, but at the same time saying that I would be glad to see him on the ground, and that he might act there according to circumstances, I continued my route to the Colonel, found him at home, sent in my card, and was at once admitted.

"Mr. Blake," said he, the moment I appeared, "I am delighted to see you. I did expect that honour before this, but better late than never."

"Many thanks, Colonel," said I. "This is just the kindness I expected from you. I knew and said you would not stand on time or such trifles; the fact is, my friend Dillon was peculiarly placed; settlements and such matters interfered; but those impediments are now happily removed, and I trust and hope, my dear Colonel, you will name the earliest possible moment for a meeting."

"I never delay such matters," was his reply; and introducing me to Captain Manners, his friend, the Colonel withdrew. Both of us being well inclined, the preliminaries were soon settled, and it was arranged we should meet at a central spot in three hours. I knew the weakness of my man, and was anxious to have the business concluded. I lost no time in returing to Dillon, who (accompanied by his wife) was uneasily watching my return.

"What news, Mick ?" said he, in a very agitated manner.

"Just such as I expected; never met a more gentlemanly man in my life. The moment he saw me he said, 'My dear Blake, I am delighted to meet you. I am most sincerely sorry for the little misunderstanding between myself and my friend Dillon, and wish an opportunity should be afforded me to make him an ample apology.'

"Most considerate, Colonel,' said I, and just what I should expect from your amiable disposition.'

"But,' said the Colonel, as a military man there must be a certain form gone through; as otherwise the consequences might be unpleasant to me.'

"I understand you,' said I, nothing more easily managed. Dillon must send you a message; you meet; you fire in the air; no one the wiser but ourselves, and all over.'

"You have hit my opinion completely,' answered he; and as I leave the country this night, the sooner the matter is over the better. Blake, you keep the arrangement a secret.'

"Certainly,' said I, and I now deliver you a message on the part of my friend, and will have him at the foot of Croagh Patrick in three hours.""

"We parted the best of friends. No time is to be lost. I have the pistols ready; so come away."

66 How very considerate," said Dillon's wife, at whom I had looked in such a way as to make her understand me," how very considerate; -now, my dear, start at once. After to-day, I thank God I won't be afraid or ashamed to appear on the race-course or at the ball."

We were immediately under weigh. Dillon, who did not by any means like the smell of powder, proposed that when they met he should at once go up to the Colonel and shake hands. This I opposed; and told him to look exceedingly stiff and reserved. They met were quickly placed-I gave the word. At the first fire the Colonel's ball took away part of Dillon's whisker, who immediately cried out, "Why, d-n it, Mick, he fired!"

As I saw he was staggered by the hit, I advanced, and making a sign to Thady to hold him by the waist in a twinkling, as if for the purpose of supporting him, I stepped before him, made my bow, and told the Colonel we were satisfied. On the spot Dillon and I parted, and never spoke since; and I think I may safely say, as I said before, there was never worse ingratitude shown by one man to another, who had "saved his honour in so kind and friendly a manner."

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THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CHARLES CHESTERFIELD,

THE YOUTH OF GENIUS.

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

CHAP. XXXIII.

SINGULAR CASE OF AN OBSTINATE OLD LADY'S CHANGING HER MIND CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MISS CLARA MEDDOWS AND MR.

CHARLES CHESTERField.

WHILE these scenes were being acted in London, Charles Chesterfield was getting over the little difficulties, and enjoying the great delights of his readmission to his home with so much good-humour as to the first, and so much warm-heartedness as to the last, that he became dearer than ever to every individual of the humble circle that again constituted his world. It is true that Mr. Westbrook did work him a little upon some of Mr. Marchmont's sublime theories; and little Bessy tobk particular pleasure, on every occasion, to show that she considered herself as quite a child. All these, however, were but masquerading miseries, and were speedily driven off the scene by real happiness.

It was in the midst of all this renovated joy, that the news arrived of Sir George Meddows's violent death; and though personal attachment towards him was probably not of a nature to make such news productive of acute anguish in any heart, the shock of such frightful tidings was felt by all; and when the orphan state of poor Clara was remembered, it was a true and genuine sorrow that was expressed by all. The venerable father of the family shook his head, and murmured his fears that the baronet would be found to have died considerably in debt.

"I hope, I hope," he said, with some anxiety in his voice and manner," that the poor dear young lady will be provided for."

"Thank God, father!" replied Charles, "I can undertake to answer for that. I know from her own authority that she was perfectly independent of Sir George, and that's a comfort, whether your notions about him are right or wrong. But surely, father, you do not mean to say that there is any doubt as to Sir George's having left enough to pay his debts?"

"I do mean to say it, Charles," replied the old man, " for I know no harm that can be done by it now. So why should I make a secret of it any longer?"

"Why, father, Sir George told me himself, that he owed you a thousand pounds."

"Did he?" said the good man, smiling, but not very gaily; "I rather wonder at his telling you so, Charles, and I can't very well guess why he did it but for all that, I am sorry to say that it is quite true."

66

Nay, but there is no great need to be sorry about it, father, seeing that you have got such excellent security. He told me that he paid

you nine İreland."

per cent for it, and that it was secured upon his estate in "Upon his estate in the moon, Charles, he meant to say. He never had an acre in Ireland in his life, poor gentleman; and as to paying me interest, it was just as true to call it nine per cent as one; for from the hour I lent it to him, which is now three years ago, to the present moment, he has never paid me one single penny by way of interest or principal either. Nor do I ever expect to get back a farthing of

it."

Something very like the shivering fit of an ague seized upon our hero, as he listened to this statement; and pretending to see somebody he wished to speak to in the orchard, he suddenly broke away, and hastened to reach a spot where he could think and feel alone. It was then that, for the first time, he became aware of all he owed to the generous self-sacrifice of Clara; it was then that he comprehended her real motives for the interference which, by her own explanation of it, appeared little more than an act of mere goodnature, intended to spare him the embarrassment of having a painful avowal to make to his father. But now he saw the act such as it really was, and he trembled to think how likely it seemed that in the performance of it she might have most deeply injured herself.

At first he felt inclined, as an act of penance for the folly which had produced this misfortune, to relate to his father all the circumstances which led to it; but the task was a painful one, and as no immediate evil seemed likely to arise from it, he returned to the house, determined at least to postpone it till he should be able to ascertain what the actual circumstances of his benefactress really were, and to decide whether it was now become a duty on his part to insist upon at least sharing the loss of which the dishonesty of her father alone would probably never have brought upon her, had it not been aided by his own weakness in so unadvisedly placing his money in the Baronet's hands.

That he sincerely meditated upon such restitution, did him the more honour, because the making it would have again hazarded all his future prospects or happiness. The favourite family project of making a clergyman of him had been resumed, greatly to his own satisfaction; and though beyond this nothing had as yet been settled, he had begun to entertain very sanguine hopes that all he now most wished in the world-namely, a union with little Bessy, might in the course of time be accomplished. But this, of course, could only be anticipated in case he retained the power of maintaining her, which, notwithstanding all his recently enlarged ideas, he still thought his little fortune, added to a curacy, might enable him to do. Not indeed that even so, his path was quite clear before him.

Bessy, it is true, had been already so far led to forget her childishness, and to remember that seventeen was really the age of rational womanhood, as to confess to him, just three days after his return, that were it not for his good mother, who had showed her a hundred times over that she would never permit them to love each other, except as cousins, that, were it not for this, she would own at once that she never would, nor never could, love any man but him. But even as he listened with a beating heart to this dear avowal, he felt that the clause

included in it was not without weight. He too, and long before his journey to London, had perceived his mother's averseness to any nearer tie between his pretty playfellow and himself; but when the madness produced by that journey had passed away, he remembered, together with his mother's evident dislike to his attachment, a variety of cheering circumstances which led him to believe that every other member of the family approved it. But upon anxiously consulting all looks and words which bore upon the subject after his return home, he began to fear that he had heretofore mistaken them, for he no longer perceived the same favouring symptoms.

The truth of the matter was, that notwithstanding Farmer Chesterfield's favourite dogma respecting the necessity of keeping women in their proper place, and never permitting them to talk of anything they did not understand, his wife Dorcas was a person of great importance in the family. They all loved her very much, but they were all a little afraid of her too: for it was a fact of domestic notoriety among them, that despite all the good farmer's boastings concerning the immutable nature of masculine authority, nothing was ever done to which she pertinaciously objected, and few things, the achievement of which was possible, were left undone if she particularly desired their accomplishment.

Such being the generally recognised state of the case, and the old lady's decided dislike to any allusion to love-making between Charles and Bessy having, before the young man's departure, become equally notorious, every notion of the kind seemed by tacit but general consent to have been dropped. Christopher had left off all his little jokes about Bessy's numberless good wifely qualities; the docile Susan had schooled herself into almost forgetting that she had ever wished to see her niece become Mrs. Charles Chesterfield; and the old man himself, though he would have stoutly denied the fact, had most indisputably abandoned all thoughts of calling his pretty favourite "daughter,' solely because he perceived that his good woman had set her mind upon something else.

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The result of all this, though not the progress of it, was quite perceptible to the young lovers; and all they could do was, to declare themselves determined, according to the established rule in all such cases, to hold steadily to their own wishes and intentions, trusting to time and perseverance for the frustrating all wishes and intentions that might be opposed to them; a line of conduct more frequently successful to the result wished for, than the happiness expected to arise from it.

In their case, however, there was unquestionably a very effective an chor for their hopes to rest upon, besides their pertinacity, in the recollection that, thanks to the good godmother, they were sufficiently independent to have their own way if they were determined upon it; and therefore it was, that the young man's resolution to refund a portion, at least, of what had been restored to him by Miss Meddows did him honour. Had he at this time been in the least degree conscious of what was going on in the mind of his mother, this determination of his would have had less of generous devotion in it. But neither he nor anybody else had the slightest notion how very completely this good lady had changed her mind. While listening to all the histories

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