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"All hail three o'clock ! All hail, Witch Butler ! Any chance of our meeting Darby Sport? I suppose he is taken up with the Moores. I'll go out and interview Johnny Beg. He will know the best line of country to take."

When the cheerful meal was ended, the sportsmen, accompanied by a well informed pioneer, took their guns and crossed the cultivated fields until they came to the heather-covered mountains.

It was a splendid day; the dogs were good, the birds pretty abundant; and when, at half-past two, the bag assumed rather plethoric proportions, Vincent agreed, with a sigh, to Mr. Taylor's suggestion-that they should turn their steps towards Mona.

When they arrived, they found the Moores had just made their appearance. Mr. Taylor and Vincent went to a room, and, having removed the traces of their sporting expedition, proceeded to the drawing-room. Introductions took place, and immediately Vincent attached himself to the younger ladies. He took a chair opposite to the two girls, and, taking a book of photographs into his hands, entered at once into conversation.

He was a tall, slight fellow, with a laughing, frank face; his cheeks were as round as a girl's; his eyes honest, bright, and blue, with very long lashes; brown hair lay back softly from a very white forehead, and a silky moustache grew above a mouth that had a peculiarly sweet expression; there was a debonair manner, an imploring audaciousness, and an absence of self-consciousness about him that was very prepossessing.

Presently the conversation turned on music.

"Oh, Ethna," said Vincent, giving her a merry glance, "I brought you some music from Germany-some of the national music."

"Have you been to Germany?" asked Mrs. Moore, languidly, turning from the Madam.

"Yes, I have only just returned," he replied. "My father was so pleased at my getting ny profession so soon that he gave me the wherewithal to travel for a time before I settled down to business; indeed he knew my studies had injured my health, and he thought it better to re-establish it at once."

The lady smiled.

"I think your father must be easily deceived," she said. She talked to him for a little time of the places of which they

had a mutual knowledge, and of which the boy showed a distinct and intelligent recollection.

He again turned to the girls.

"Just fancy," he said, plaintively, "falling down to the level of attorney life after feeling yourself incorporated with Byron on the top of Drachenfels. Is it not hard on a fellow "?

"Console yourself by thinking you'll make a better attorney than Byron would have made," answered Ethna.

"Has an attorney ever written poetry, Mr. Talbot ?" asked Miss Butler, laughingly.

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Ah, the crush of crowded courts takes it out of them, Miss Butler, and the weary press of disputants. I feel that I have all the elements of a great poet in me-imagination, feeling, perception, of the beautiful; even to the matter of being crossed in love. Is it not true, Ethna ? "

"Not a particle of it," replied Ethna. "He would not give any girl time to cross him in love, Miss Butler."

"Do not take Miss Moore's character of me," said Vincent, imploringly. "She measures another's feelings by the amount she has herself, and that is absolutely none. I have known her since she was a very bold, little child that could not be got to divide an apple fairly with a playmate. The child is father of the man."

Philip was all this time leaning with his back against the chimneypiece stroking the end of his moustache, listening to the conversation and laughter of the three young people, with feelings that were becoming a little cynical. He was rather surprised at the sudden appearance of this undeniably handsome fellow in the habitation of his lady-love, and on a footing, too, that was strikingly friendly; he had not seen Ethna look so radiant for a long time, she seemed like a stream that had broken through its ice; he heard them alluding to actions and scenes of bygone days in which they were associated; and, altogether, he felt in anything but harmonious relations with those around him. At luncheon he paid particular attention to Miss Butler, as much attention as Vincent permitted him to pay, for that voluble young gentleman contrived to attract all the girls within his orbit, and tossed the ball of conversation from one to another with the readiest address imaginable.

Ethna saw her lover whispering into the ear of the heiress, but

she only laughed the more, and made gay remarks to Vincent. She was scrupulously polite to Philip, but her very accent was a barrier between them. He treated her with the most admirable sang froid, and eat his luncheon with exquisite composure.

CHAPTER XIII.

MR. LYNCH PREFERS A REQUEST.

After a very agreeable hour the ladies returned to the drawingroom, and the gentlemen went outside the hall-door to enjoy the peaceful pleasure of a cigar. The windows were open. They heard Miss Butler running her fingers over the piano, and exclaim: "Oh! 'tis dreadfully out of tune, is it not?"

"I'm afraid it is," replied Ethna. "I have not touched it for some time."

"I have got such a glorious instrument," continued Miss Butler. It is delightful to play on it; Herr Hafenstien said it was the sweetest piano he knew. I love music, do not you? Do you sing?"

"A little," answered Ethna, watching the girl's lovely hands performing the most intricate evolutions.

Vincent, always unable to resist the combined attraction of music and ladies' society, threw away his cigar and joined them at the piano.

Ethna had a fine, rich voice, which had only got that amount of questionable cultivation obtainable in a second-rate school. Miss Moore played the accompaniment, and soon Philip had the satisfaction of hearing Vincent's really splendid bass voice asking Ethna "what would she do," and her very expressive rejoinders.

"Oh, Mr. Talbot, that is ever so pretty," exclaimed Miss Butler; "you have a grand voice; but to look at you I would be certain you had a tenor one. I never heard that old song before. Irish is it not? Sing something else, please."

"Here is something in my line," said Vincent, taking up the music of "O'Donnell Aboo." "I think a bass should sing of war, not of love. If I continued to warble my passion into my lady's ear, I'd break the drum of it; here I can let off my heart."

The boy burst forth into "Proudly the note of the trumpet is

sounding," with a fire and soft thunder that thrilled his listeners. "What a fine voice that young fellow has," said Mr. Moore, after slowly letting the smoke of his cigar through his lips. nice chap, too. Son of old Talbot's."

"A

"His only child," replied Mr. Taylor, " and the best-hearted fellow breathing."

"Talbot must be pretty well off," said Mr. Moore.

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'Yes, so he is, has a tidy bit of property, and lots of money, they say; but you know we are a maligned profession. People exaggerate our opportunities for money-making."

"Evictions give you considerable employment at all events," said Henry Moore. "What about that Crawford? be rather hard on the tenants.”

He seems to

"He'll be shot if he doesn't look out," answered the attorney. "He's a born devil; by Jove, sir, it would make your blood boil to hear how he treated those poor wretches on the Ballybruin property. The sheriff actually groaned, I heard, at being obliged to do his duty, and expostulated warmly with Crawford. But it was no use. One family in particular were painfully situated, one of them was taken out on a sick bed and laid by the ditch, so the house could be levelled. When all was over the sheriff went up to them in the very teeth of Crawford, Here my poor people, are three pounds to help you,' said he, 'I would not have assisted this cruel work only it was my duty.' A day of reckoning will come to Crawford if he don't change his tactics; live and let live is a wise motto."

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"How is a man to live if he does not get his rents?" said Philip Moore. "It seems to me as if Irish sympathy inclines to be one-sided, and overlooks the necessities of the landlord "

"No," replied Mr. Taylor, "that is not the fact. The landlord must live as well as the tenants; rights should be equalised; but surely it is not just that the burden of the day, the heat and cold, should fall entirely on one section of the community; that bad times, harvest, and markets, should stint the toilers in the necessaries of life, while the possessors of the soil still expect the wherewithal to supply their superfluities."

"Ireland is a cursed country," said Philip, scornfully," and it is this absurd sentiment that keeps her discontented," he nodded his head backward to the drawingroom where Ethna was singing one of the national songs.

"It is that that keeps alive her patriotism her individuality, sir," said Mr. Taylor, smiling. "What is anything when it loses its originality? Here is our young nationalist; is it not true, Vincent ?" and Mr. Taylor repeated his words.

"Quite true," said the boy.

"Up here near Heaven who

would not feel an impulse after freedom?"

"You go in for Repeal, and all that sort of thing, I suppose," remarked Philip, with calm indifference. "Pity those modern Hibernian ideas are so Utopian."

"Repeal is not a very modern idea," said Vincent, rather provoked at Philip's tone; "it is almost as old as the Union itself. There was many an anti-Union meeting in the Orange Lodges in Ulster until they openly convened one in 1810 to petition Parliament."

"I often heard my father say that if O'Connell had joined the Protestant Repealers, and fought for Repeal instead of Emancipation they would have won the day," said Mr. Taylor, "but when the Emancipation Bill passed the Protestants took fright, and abandoned the cause, fearing that the liberated Papists would be more aggressive even than England. Ah, here is a man well up in Irish History, my old friend, Mr. Lynch."

He and Vincent went forward and shook hands cordially with the schoolmaster.

"Thank you, Mr. Taylor, thank your honour, your kindness and courtesy are always to be depended on," said Mr. Lynch. "And yours, Mr. Vincent. I was truly rejoiced to learn, sir, that you have passed through your examination crisis with such satisfactory distinction. You are commencing an honourable career, sir, pro bono publico, following in the footsteps of a respected parent."

"You don't believe in attorneys, Mr. Lynch, do you?" said Henry Moore, laughing.

The schoolmaster advanced and returned the gentlemen's salutations with great and respectful dignity.

"Well, yes, I do, sir," he replied. "I believe an honest man retains his honesty no matter in what position of life it pleases the Almighty to place him. No doubt, there are many individuals in the profession who are dead to the instincts of humanity, and engage persons in needless and costly litigation; but there are others, sir, who are an ornament to it. I shall mention no names

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