which, if a ricketty table and some infernal lampblack for ink should make illegible, you'll have to wait for the elucidation till my arrival. I found Glencore terribly altered; I'd not have known him. He used to be muscular and rather full in habit; he is now a mere skeleton. His hair and moustache were coal black; they are a motley grey. He was straight as an arrowpretentiously erect, many thought; he is stooped now, and bent nearly double. His voice, too, the most clear and ringing in the squadron, is become a hoarse whisper. You remember what a passion he had for dress, and how heartily we all deplored the chance of his being colonel, well knowing what precious caprices of costly costume would be the consequence. Well, a discharged corporal, in a cast-off mufti, is stylish compared to him. I don't think he has a hat-I have only seen an oilskin cap; but his coat, his one coat, is a curiosity of industrious patchwork; and his trowsers are a pair of our old overalls, the same pattern we wore at Hounslow when the king reviewed us.

"Great as these changes are, they are nothing to the alteration in the poor fellow's disposition. He that was generous to munificence, is now an absolute miser, descending to the most pitiful economy, and moaning over every trifling outlay. He is irritable, too, to a degree. Far from the jolly, lighthearted comrade, ready to join in the laugh against himself, and enjoy a jest of which he was the object, he suspects a slight in every allusion, and bristles up to resent a mere familiarity, as though it were an insult.

"Of course I put much of this down to the score of illness, and of bad health before he was so ill; but, depend upon it, he's not the man we knew him. Heaven knows if he ever will be so again. The night I arrived here he was more natural-more like himself, in fact, than he has ever been since. His manner was heartier, and in his welcome there was a touch of the old jovial good fellow, who never was so happy as when sharing his quarters with a comrade. Since that he has grown punctilious, anxiously asking me if I am comfortable, and teasing me with apologies for what I don't miss, and excuses about things that I should never have discovered wanting.

"I think I see what is passing with

in him; he wants to be confidential, and he doesn't know how to go about it. I suppose he looks on me as rather a rough father to confess to; he isn't quite sure what kind of sympathy, if any, he'll meet with from me, and he more than half dreads a certain careless, outspoken way in which I have now and then addressed his boy, of whom more anon.

"I may be right, or I may be wrong, in this conjecture; but certain it is, that nothing like confidential conversation has yet passed between us, and each day seems to render the prospect of such only less and less likely. I wish from my heart you were here; you are just the fellow to suit himjust calculated to nourish the susceptibilities that I only shock. I said as much t'other day, in a half-careless way, and he immediately caught it up, and said-'Ay, George, Upton is a man one wants now and then in life, and when the moment comes, there is no such thing as a substitute for him.' In a joking manner, I then remarked, Why not come over to see him?' Leave this!' cried he; venture into the world again; expose myself to its brutal insolence, or still more brutal pity!' In a torrent of passion, he went on in this strain, till I heartily regretted that I had ever touched this unlucky topic.

"I date his greatest reserve from that same moment; and I am sure he is disposed to connect me with the casual suggestion to go over to Studtgard, and deems me, in consequence, one utterly deficient in all true feeling and delicacy.

"I needn't tell you that my stay here is the reverse of a pleasure. I'm never, what fine people call, bored anywhere; and I could amuse myself gloriously in this queer spot. I have shot some half dozen seals, hooked the heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and have had rare coursing, not to say that Glencore's table, with certain reforms I have introduced, is very tolerable, and his cellar unimpeachable. I'll back his chambertin against your excellency's; and I have discovered bin of red hermitage that would convert a whole vineyard of the smallest Lafitte into Sneyd's claret; but with all these seductions, I can't stand the life of continued constraint I'm reduced to. Glencore evidently sent for me to make some revelations, which, now that

a

he sees me, he cannot accomplish. For aught I know, there may be as many changes in me to his eyes, as to mine there are in him. I only can vouch for it, that if I ride three stone heavier, I haven't the worse place, and I don't detect any striking falling off in my appreciation of good fare and good fellows.

"I spoke of the boy; he is a fine lad-somewhat haughty, perhaps; a little spoiled by the country people calling him the young lord; but a generous fellow, and very like Glencore, when he first joined us at Canterbury. By way of educating him himself, Glencore has been driving Virgil and decimal fractions into him; and the boy, bred in the country-never out of it for a day-can't load a gun or tie a tackle. Not the worst thing about the boy is his inordinate love for Glencore, whom he imagines to be about the greatest and most gifted being that ever lived. I can scarcely help smiling at the implicitness of this honest faith; but I take good care not to smile; on the contrary, I give every possible encouragement to the belief. I conclude the disenchantment will arrive only too early at last.

"You'll not know what to make of such a lengthy epistle from me, and you'll doubtless torture that fine diplomatic intelligence of yours to detect the secret motive of my long-windedness; but the simple fact is, it has rained incessantly for the last three days, and promises the same cheering weather for as many more. Glencore doesn't fancy that the boy's lessons should be broken in upon-and hinc iste litteræ-that's classical for you.

"I wish I could say when I am likely to beat my retreat. I'd staynot very willingly, perhaps but still I'd stay, if I thought myself of any use; but I cannot persuade myself that I am such. Glencore is now about again, feeble of course, and much pulled down, but able to go about the house and the garden. I can contribute nothing to his recovery, and I fear as little to his comfort. I even doubt if he desires me to prolong my visit; but such is my fear of offending him, that I actually dread to allude to my departure, till I can sound my way as to how he'll take it. This fact alone will show you how much he is changed from the Glencore of long ago. Another feature in him, totally unlike his for

mer self, struck me the other evening. We were talking of old messmates Croydon, Stanhope, Loftus, and yourself and instead of dwelling, as he once would have done, exclusively on your traits of character and disposition, he discussed nothing but your abilities, and the capacity by which you could win your way to honours and distinction. I needn't say how, in such a valuation, you came off best. Indeed he professes the highest esteem for your talents, and says, You'll see Upton either a cabinet minister or ambassador at Paris yet;' and this he repeated in the same words last night, as if to show it was not dropped as a mere random observation.

"I have some scruples about venturing to offer anything bordering a suggestion to a great and wily diplomatist like yourself; but if an illustrious framer of treaties and protocols would condescend to take a hint from an old dragoon colonel, I'd say that a few lines from your crafty pen might possibly unlock this poor fellow's heart, and lead him to unburthen to you what he evidently cannot persuade himself to reveal to me. I can see plainly enough that there is something on his mind; but I know it just as a stupid' old hound feels there is a fox in the cover, but cannot for the life of him see how he's to draw' him.

"A letter from you would do him good, at all events; even the little gossip of your gossiping career would cheer and amuse him. He said, very plaintively, two nights ago, They've all forgotten me. When a man retires from the world, he begins to die, and the great event, after all, is only the coup-de-grace to a long agony of tor. ture. Do write to him, then; the address is Glencore Castle, Leenane, Ireland,' where, I suppose, I shall be still a resident for another fortnight to

come.

"Glencore has just sent for me; but I must close this for the post, or it will be too late.

"Yours ever truly,

"GEORGE HARCOURT." "I open this to say that he sent for me to ask for your address whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to Studtgard. You'll probably not hear for some days, for he writes with extreme difficulty, and I leave it to your wise discretion to write to him or not in the interval.

"Poor fellow, he looks very ill today. He says that he never slept the whole night, and that the laudanum he took to induce drowsiness, only excited and maddened him. I counselled a hot jorum of mulled porter before getting into bed; but he deemed me

a monster for the recommendation, and seemed quite disgusted besides. Couldn't you send him over a despatch? I think such a document from Studtgard ought to be an unfailing soporific."

WHEN Harcourt repaired to Glencore's bedroom, where he still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was struck by the signs of suffering in the sick man's face. The cheeks were bloodless and fallen in, the lips pinched, and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which results from an over-wrought and over-excited brain.

"Sit down here, George," said he, pointing to a chair beside the bed; "I want to talk to you. I thought every day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say; but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it be a life of misery."

"It strikes me that you were never less equal to the effort than now," said Harcourt, laying his hand on the other's pulse.

"The

"Don't believe my pulse, George," said Glencore, smiling faintly. machine may work badly, but it has wonderful holding out. I've gone through enough," added he, gloomily, "to kill most men, and here I am still, breathing and suffering."

"This place doesn't suit you, Glencore. There are not above two days in the month you can venture to take the air."

"And where would you have me go, sir?" broke he in fiercely. "Would you advise Paris and the Boulevards, or a palace in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome? or perhaps the Chiaja at Naples would be public enough? Is it that I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe, that I should leave this solitude?"

"I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore; somewhere where the sun shines occasionally."

"This suits me," said the other, bluntly; "and here I have the security that none can invade-none molest me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak-it is of my boy."

Harcourt made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to what was coming. "It is time to think of him," added Glencore, slowly. "The other dayit seems but the other day-and he was a mere child; a few years more-to seem when past like a long dreary night-and he will be a man.'

"Very true," said Harcourt; "and Charley is one of those fellows who only make one plunge from the boy into all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into a college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, and this day week you'll not know him from the rest.'

Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed Harcourt's remark.

"Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt ?" asked he, after a pause.

"Never, except when I led the subject in that direction; and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he would avoid."

"Have you discovered any strong inclination in him for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to another?"

"None; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, I'd say that this dull monotony, and this dreary, uneventful existence, is what he likes best of all the world."

"You really think so?" cried Glencore, with an eagerness that seemed out of proportion to the remark.

"So far as I see," rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and not wishing to let his observation carry graver consequences than he might suspect.

"So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a quiet, unambitious tenor neither seeking for distinctions, nor fretting after honours."

"How should he know of their existence, Glencore? What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles? It's not in Homer, or Sallust, he'd

learn the strife of parties and public

men.'

"And why need he ever know them?" broke in Glencore, fiercely.

"If he doesn't know them now, he's sure to be taught them hereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a title and a good fortune

"Stop, Harcourt!" cried Glencore, passionately. "Has anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with the boy?"

"Not a word-not a syllable." "Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, implied that he was aware of”

Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought for did not present itself. Harcourt, however, released him from all embarassment, by saying

"With me, the boy is rarely anything but a listener; he hears me talk away of tiger-shooting, and buffalohunting, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But I can see in his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him my lord

"

"But he is not my lord," broke in Glencore.

"Of course he is not; that I am perfectly aware of."

"He never will. never shall be," cried Glencore, in a voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terri

ble energy.

"How-what do you mean, Glencore?" said Harcourt, eagerly. "Has he any malady?-is there any deadly taint ?"

"That there is, by Heaven!" cried the sick man, grasping the curtain with one hand, while he held the other firmly clenched upon his forehead. "A taint, the deadliest that can stain a human heart! Talk of station, rank, title-what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, ignominy, and sorrow? The loud voice of the herald calls his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore; but a still louder one proclaims his mother a—”

With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, face downwards, on the bed; and now scream after scream burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same day returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to make a formal resignation of his functions as letter

carrier.

"This is nothing but an accessio nervosa,"" said Billy; "clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with the patient." And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience by first taking his departure.

Lord Glencore's attack was more serious than at first it was apprehended, and for three days there was every threat of a relapse of his late fever; but Billy's skill was once more successful, and on the fourth day he declared that the danger was past. During this period, Harcourt's attention was, for the first time, drawn to the strange creature who officiated as the doctor, and who, in despite of all the detracting influences of his humble garb and mean attire, aspired to be treated with the deference due to a great physician.

"If it's the crown and the sceptre makes the king," said he, "'tis the same with the science that makes the doctor; and no man can be despised when he has a rag of ould Galen's mantle to cover his shoulders."

"So you're going to take blood from him?" asked Harcourt, as he met him on the stairs, where he had awaited his coming one night when it was late.

"No, sir; 'tis more a disturbance of the great nervous centres than any decayin' of the heart and arteries," said Billy, pompously; "that's what shows a real doctor, to distinguish between the effects of excitement and inflammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a bombardment."

"Not a bad simile, Master Billy; come in and drink a glass of brandyand-water with me," said Harcourt, right glad at the prospect of such companionship.

Billy Traynor, too, was flattered by the invitation, and seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and submissive.

"You've a difficult patient to treat there," said Harcourt, when he had furnished his companion with a pipe, and twice filled his glass; "he's hard to manage, I take it?"

"Yer right," said Billy; "every touch is a blow, every breath of air is a hurricane with him. There's no such thing as tratin' a man of that timperament; it's the same with many of them ould families as with our racehorses, they breed them too fine."

"Egad, I think you are right," said Harcourt, pleased with an illustration that suited his own modes of thinking.

"Yes, sir," said Billy, gaining confidence by the approval; "a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought to be balanced, and, as the ancients say, in equilibrio. If you give a pre-ponderance here or there, whether it be brain or spinal marrow, cardiac functions or digestive ones, you disthroy him, and make that dangerous kind of constitution that, like a horse with a hard mouth, or a boat with a weather helm, always runs to one side."

"That's well put, well explained," said Harcourt, who really thought the illustration appropriate.

"Now my lord there," continued Billy, "is all out of balance, every bit of him. Bleed him, and he sinks; stimulate him, and he goes ragin' mad. 'Tis their physical conformation makes their character; and to know how to cure them in sickness, one ought to have some knowledge of them in health."

"How came you to know all this? You are a very remarkable fellow, Billy."

"I am, sir; I'm a phenumenon in a small way. And many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, what a pity it is I havn't the advantages of edication and instruction, and that's just where they're wrong, complately wrong."

"Well, I confess I don't perceive that."

"I'll show you, then. There's a kind of janius natural to men like myself, in Ireland I mean, for I never heerd of it elsewhere. That's just like our Irish emerald or Irish diamond, wonderful if one considers where you find it astonishin' if you only think how azy it is to get, but a regular disappointment, a downright take-in, if you intend to have it cut, and polished, and set. No, sir; with all the care and culture in life, you'll never make a precious stone of it!"

* You've not taken the right way to convince me, by using such an illustration, Billy."

"I'll try another, then," said Billy. "We are like Willy-the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there's no road to travel, but of no manner of use on the highway, or in the dark streets of a village where one has business."

"Your own services here are the refutation to your argument, Billy," said Harcourt, filling his glass.

"'Tis your kindness to say so, sir," said Billy, with gratified pride; "but the sacrat was, he thrusted me that was the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is confidence, just as all the magic of eloquence is con-viction."

You have reflected profoundly, I see," said Harcourt.

"I made a great many observations at one time of my life-the opportunity was favourable."

"When and how was that?"

"I travelled with a baste caravan for two years, sir; and there's nothing taches one to know mankind like the study of bastes!"

"Not complimentary to humanity, certainly," said Harcourt, laughing.

"Yes, but it is, though; for it is by a con-sideration of the feræ naturæ that you get at the raal nature of mere animal existence. You see there man in the rough, as a body might say, just as he was turned out of the first workshop, and before he was fettered with the divinus afflatus, the æthereal essence, that makes him the first of creation. There's all the qualities good and bad-love, hate, vengeance, gratitude, grief, joy, ay and mirth there they are in the brutes; but they're in no subjection, except by fear. Now it's out of man's motives his character is moulded, and fear is only one amongst them. D'ye apprehend me?"

"Perfectly; fill your pipe." And he pushed the tobacco towards him.

"I will; and I'll drink the memory of the great and good man that first intro-duced the weed amongst usHere's Sir Walter Raleigh. By the same token, I was in his house last week."

"In his house! where?"

"Down at Greyhall. You Englishmen, savin' your presence, always forget that many of your celebrities lived years in Ireland. For it was the same long ago as now-a place of decent banishment for men of janius-a kind of straw-yard where ye turned out your intellectual hunters till the sayson came on at home."

"I'm sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlightenment, you have the vulgar prejudice against the Saxon."

to

And that's the rayson I have it, because it is vulgar," said Billy, eagerly. Vulgar means popular, common many; and what's the best test of truth in anything but universal belief, or whatever comes nearest to it. I