Several meetings now took place at Sir Arthur's for the purpose of considering what plans would be best adapted to secure the safety of Mrs. and Miss Smythe, till the dangerous madman who persecuted them could be secured and confined, on all which occasions Captain De Crespigny attended, as he rather enjoyed the excitement and interest with which the story filled up his vacant hours, and, careless of the impression he believed himself to be making on the affections of Miss Smythe, he felt some solicitude respecting her safety, while he expressed ten times more than he felt, and observed, in his usual off-handed style, that this was not the only man whose head she would probably turn; but in his own case, though she had almost put him out of his senses already, yet he would rather make an end of himself than of her.

Caroline drily thanked him for his obliging intentions on her behalf, and after a lively dialogue, in which the gay huzzar actually excelled himself, in his fervent expressions of admiration and regard, he took leave, rather wondering to think how he had been led on in professing so much, and giving himself a lecture as he rode home, on the propriety of beginning to "back out," seeing that he was getting rather beyond his depth. Still there were several of the reasons for meeting next day, usual with those who have a natural desire to improve an agreeable intimacy, a song to be practised, a drawing to be admired; and Miss Smythe having made a sort of promise to let Captain De Crespigny sit to her for his picture in the character of Dromio, as she was an admirable artist, the offer became irresistible. He had never yet entered their own house, as meetings were always hitherto arranged at Sir Arthur's; and a slight feeling of curiosity likewise helped him to the agreeable conclusion, that he must for once, and only once, call on the "Smythes," were it only to ascertain what sort of establishment they had.

Punctual to the appointed hour, Captain De Crespigny's groom rang a consequential peal for his master at the gate of Rosemount Villa, such as had not been heard there since bells were invented, and after a considerable delay, the door was opened by a shabby awkward-looking Irish girl, speaking with a powerful brogue, who curtsied with an appearance of most preposterous respect to Captain De Crespigny as he alighted, and pointed up stairs, begging him to walk in, but without having an idea apparently that she ought herself to usher him into the drawing-room.

Being always pretty confident of making himself welcome, Captain De Crespigny advanced, and in his usual gay, humorous tone, announced his own name at the drawing-room door, while he threw it open and entered. To his surprise, he now found himself in a small, not very splendidly furnished apartment, stretched on the only sofa belonging to which, there lounged, in solitary indolence, with a quite-at-home look, a young man whom he had never seen before. His aspect and dress were equally singular, presenting that happy mixture of the ruffian and gentleman, not very uncommon in Ireland. Attired in a military great-coat, he wore a most preposterous pair of whiskers and mustachios, long, coarse, and dirty, which looked as if they had been curled over knitting wires. Taking the last remnant of a cigar out of his mouth when the visitor entered, and showing not the smallest surprise, with a smile which betrayed a set of dingy, decayed teeth, and a very disfiguring squint, he watched the approaching step of Captain De Crespigny with a degage look of indifference, saying, in a tone of easy familiarity,

"Och! sure! I always knew a milithary man, for he enters with his lift foot first! Many deserters who would may-be have escaped, but the thrick betrayed 'em. A curious fact! Will ye be pleased to sit on your four quarthers, Captain?"

A smile of contempt and ridicule curled on the haughty lip of Captain De Crespigny, while he proudly drew back, saying, in a tone of great reserve, and with the very slightest possible soupcon of a bow, "Excuse me, sir, I must have mistaken the house!"

"Arrah! not at all! not in the very laste. Sure! I'm here for the purpose!" exclaimed the stranger, starting up from his recumbent position with astonishing agility, and closing the door. "Isn't it relations we shall be before long, and why should we meet as strangers?"

"Relations! what do you mean, sir? Here is some ridiculous blunder!" replied Captain De Crespigny, turning contemptuously on his heel. "Allow me to pass! Good morning!"

"Well! relations or connexions, it's all one," continued the Irishman, with a look of easy good humor. "My aunt, Mrs. Smythe, dropped me a line to say I would be wanted about the settlement, though, for the matter of that, there is not much, I fancy, on either of your parts to settle. More gold on the outside of the pocket than the inside, Captain! Hey! excuse me! but as my aunt says, in the matther of money, we take the will for the deed!"

"You must be slightly deranged, sir," interrupted Captain De Crespigny, in a tone of angry perplexity; "I have heard that a madman is loose about this neighborhood, and I need not go far, I see, to find him."

"What! Hey! Sure you're not going to forswear all, or say thing you have said to my pretty cousin, Caroline. We do make short work of our courtships in Dublin, sure enough; but when my aunt told me this morning how soon you had come to the point with Caroline, and nothing left but to fix the day, I laughed ready to kill myself, and says I, 'you beat all Ireland to sticks!'"

"No more of this folly, sir!" exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, with rising irritation, and in his most peremptory tone. "Detain me here one moment longer, and I shall send you a shorter way down stairs than you ever tried before!"

"Och, murder! you'll excuse me, sir, but I've not been dipped in the Shannon for nothing! This must all be settled as gintlemen usually settle these affairs in our counthry! Sure you met my cousin at Sir Arthur's many a time, and you'll not be afther denying that she convarsed with you every day for a matther of four hours!"

"Perhaps she had that honor, but what then?"

"Why thin, sir! such things as you said, from such a gintleman, are not easily to be forgotten!"

"You are pleased to be complimentary!" replied Captain De Crespigny, turning round his magnificent head with an air of bitter contempt; "but what of that?"

"I heartily wish," continued the Irishman, with a still stronger brogue than before, "that every young lady who meets with a gintleman such as you, had a cousin like Paddy Smythe to take up her cause, and I am as little to be thrifled with as any man in Ireland! The tongue that deceives me or mine shall never spake again. I have exchanged shots before now on a slighter occasion!"

A momentary pause ensued, during which Captain De Crespigny frowned and bit his lip, in angry embarrassment, while, with a look of unutterable contempt and disgust, he eyed his companion, who thrust his hands into his ample pockets, and paced up and down the room with rapid strides and determined emphasis. At length, stopping opposite to his irritated companion, he eyed him for some moments with a look of stern reproach, saying, in a stronger Irish brogue than ever, and with a torrent of indignation, which gave almost the dignity of eloquence to what he uttered,

"You think there are no feelings in the world to be consulted but your own! perhaps we may prove this a slight mistake! I have married seven of my cousins already to officers quarthered in our neighborhood at Limerick, and Caroline is the last! Captain Mortimer was introduced to Mary at the top of a country dance, and engaged her for life before he reached the bottom. Lieutenant Murray gave his arm to Bessy for the first time going down to dinner at Mrs. Fitz-Patrick's, and offered her his hand before the fish was off the table! We understand these things very soon in Ireland! and I would shed every drop of my blood before Caroline shall be disappointed!"

Captain De Crespigny began now to feel seriously annoyed at his own position! Not having lately been quartered in Ireland, he had forgotten how such affairs are managed there, but at this moment a thousand recollections crowded upon him, of warnings he had received from his brother officers respecting the prudence and circumspection to be exercised beside the Shannon, though most of what they said, had been listened to with the same incredulous attention usually bestowed upon stories of ghosts and witchcraft. Here he was, however, snared like a fly in a spider's web, though without a single doubt of his own powers to escape, and with no stronger objection to call out this insolent ruffian beside him, than the publicity and ridicule he must inevitably incur, if involved in a vulgar every-day duel with a hot-headed Irishman.

Seeing that the affair was likely to take a graver turn than he had imagined, Captain De Crespigny now slowly and resolutely strode towards the hearth-rug, and turning his back to the fire, in that attitude peculiar to Englishmen, calmly and sternly looked in the face of his insolent companion, whose lip became compressed with an air of fierce determination, while his dark eye glittered with a triumphant smile, and in an attitude of perfect nonchalance, he returned Captain De Crespigny gaze for gaze, while leisurely resuming his lounging attitude on the sofa. Neither gentleman seemed at all inclined to recommence the discussion immediately, and both looked equally angry, till the Irishman at length opened a pocket-book, to which, he frequently afterwards referred, with a business-like air, and in a tone of conscious triumph, saying,

"Will you be afther denying all you said to my cousin only last night?"

"I deny nothing, Sir, except the right you or any human being can have, with what I choose to say, five minutes after it has been uttered!" replied Captain De Crespigny, almost delirious with rage, and drawing in his breath between his clenched teeth, while the Irishman eyed him with provoking coolness, and merely muttered in reply, while still referring to the pocket-book,

"That is not our way in Limerick! Scarcely one of my cousins had a case like this! Breach of promise! Sure it would fetch a verdict to-morrow; but the shortest way is the best! Why, Sir! you told my cousin, poor girl! that you wished there were not another man on the earth, in case she might prefer him to you!"

"But luckily there are many, or she would have little chance of a husband!" replied Captain De Crespigny, almost beside himself with rage. "I have said the same thing a thousand times, to a thousand different young ladies, without expecting them ever to think of it more!"

The Irishman looked away for a moment, as if some irresistible feeling had come over him, which he could scarcely suppress, and with a slight quiver in his voice, as if on the very eve of laughter, though Captain De Crespigny was too angry to notice it, he sang, while looking out of the window, these words, with a very marked emphasis,—

"Erin, oh! Erin's the land of delight, Where the women all love, and the men they all fight."

At length, Captain De Crespigny, losing all patience, followed his antagonist to the window, and said, in a tone of angry command,

"Let there be a truce to this most contemptible farce! If you are a gentleman, which I very much doubt, send any respectable friend—a man of honor, if you happen by chance to know such a person—to my barracks, and before to-morrow I shall find, if possible, some blundering Irishman who can understand you, to settle this absurd affair."

"That may soon be done," replied Mr. Smythe, "if I am not satisfied with your intentions."

"Intentions!" re-echoed Captain De Crespigny, in a frenzy of contempt. "My intentions were merely to amuse myself for an hour or two with a rather pleasing young lady, and——"

"Rather pleasing!! you may be proud of your gallantry!" replied the Irishman, with more real indignation in his voice, than it had yet exhibited. "Perhaps, Sir, being the lady's cousin——"

"It is no matter who you are! I am not here to be questioned like a member before his constituents. I did not know the young lady had a relation on earth."

"The more shame to you, Sir, for meaning to deceive her!" replied the Irishman in a tone of stern reproach. "If I were to get all Ireland for holding my tongue, you should hear the truth. But maybe you would be after giving me satisfaction in another way. I'm not such a wild beast as to thirst for blood, it can be done with pen and ink!"

Captain De Crespigny fixed his eyes with stern contempt upon his free and easy companion, who passed his fingers through his long bushy wig, stretched his legs upon the sofa, and spoke with a yawning voice, while he added in a careless off-hand way, "If my cousin could only be persuaded you meant nothing from first to last, there's an ensign in the 42d, with very good prospects, she might have for the asking! Here is a paper. I prepared it in case you might object to the match; and if you'll only sign this assurance that you meant nothing, for the lady's own satisfaction, you are a free man. It will save us both a deal of bother and fighting. A man who has fought a dozen times like me, may go out once too often; and my pistols are all at Dublin!"

Captain De Crespigny paused a moment, irresolute what to do. It was a condescension quite intolerable to have another moment's intercourse with such a man, and to sign any paper at his request, seemed almost a degradation; but then he saw before him a long vista of vulgar annoyance from this forward Irishman. He was aware that hundreds of gentlemen would laugh if the story got any publicity, and that dozens of young ladies would feel themselves aggrieved if it became circulated that his attentions had been so very marked to an obscure Miss Smythe.

The tea-tables, the newspapers, the club, and the mess, were all to be dreaded; and seeing that the Irishman had, with an air of perfect nonchalance, buried himself behind a double number of the "Times," which he seemed to be attentively reading, Captain De Crespigny glanced his eye over the paper, and finding that it contained only a short and simple declaration that he never had intended to marry the young lady introduced to him by Sir Charles Dunbar, he hastily signed his name, tossed the paper contemptuously across the table, and with infinite dignity, strode out of the house.

Great was his surprise, when descending the staircase, to hear, in the room he had so recently left a simultaneous burst of smothered laughter from several persons. He could not be mistaken! It seemed even as if there were female voices in the number; but almost bewildered with anger, and happy also to escape, he hastened onwards, threw himself on horseback, and galloped for three hours before he had regained any portion of his usual equanimity.

Had Captain De Crespigny followed his first impulse, on hearing the laughter behind him, it would have been to retrace his steps and re-enter the drawing-room of Mrs. Smythe, when his astonishment would certainly not have been small to see Henry De Lancey laughingly disencumbering himself of his whiskers, wig, and mustachios, while Mrs. Smith exclaimed, in accents of almost convulsive risibility,

"Well done, my adopted nephew! You deserve to be my heir! I have often heard that my old aversion Louis De Crespigny's exploits were inimitable in his line; but we needed such a specimen as this. I bestow the fright upon him with all the pleasure in life!"

"I only hope, if we ever, in the course of years, meet again, that my cousin will not recognise me," added Caroline, smiling. "It was not particularly flattering to see Louis in so much alarm! Yesterday, however, when he saw me last, I was certainly looking my very worst."

"Your worst is better than the best of anybody else," exclaimed Henry, in a tone so exactly resembling that of Captain De Crespigny, that Mrs. Smythe started, and looked round with alarm; while Caroline and young De Lancey burst into a simultaneous laugh of frolicsome glee, and continued the dialogue during several minutes, with great spirit and vivacity, till Henry suddenly became conscious, that in imagining the words of another, he was gradually betrayed into expressing his own real feelings, and that, too, with a depth and fervor which sincerity alone could have dictated.

Checking himself in a moment, while the color rushed to his face, dyeing it red to the very roots of his hair, and instantly receded again, he took a hurried leave of Mrs. Smythe, and turning to Caroline with a quivering lip, he said, in a voice which none but herself could hear, "I must not say in jest what I feel in earnest! Farewell! There are wishes known only to my own heart, and never to be realized, which I must try to forget. You go to-morrow, and we shall probably meet no more! Forgive me, then, if I say, that so long as I live you shall be first in my most respectful and devoted affections; and death only can ever make me forget you."

Before Henry left the ante-room, being in search of his hat, he found it laid beside an open portfolio on the table, which, having, in his haste, accidentally thrown down, he began hastily collecting its contents, when his surprise was great, on turning up one sheet of the drawing paper, to find there a finely-executed sketch, done with all the skill and spirit of an accomplished artist, representing the venerable head of Sir Arthur; and on the same paper—could it be possible!—an almost living representation of himself. The likeness very much flattered, he thought—exceedingly flattered; but still it could be no other; and the picture dropped from his hand in the transport of his delight.

Henry again returned to the portfolio, hurriedly turning the leaves over; and amidst a variety of superbly-finished miniatures, he found his own countenance over and over again grouped in animated contrast with that of Sir Arthur. His heart throbbed with joy, when, after hastily turning to the title-page, he discovered, according to his hopes and wishes, the name of Caroline Smythe; and he leaned his head on his hand, contemplating that name in silent ecstacy, while indulging for one moment the pleasing, but perhaps presumptuous hope, that he had been remembered with unacknowledged partiality, and that the secret was here portrayed with her own pencil.

He was about then to withdraw, when suddenly the raised and irritated tones of Mrs. Smythe became unavoidably audible to him, from the room he had so recently left, saying, in accents of angry remonstrance,

"That look of girlish joy when he comes, and the sadness of your eye when he departs, might betray it to any one less interested than myself; but he has met few ladies hitherto, and on his part it is a mere boyish fancy, which, if properly discouraged, will of itself wear out."

Henry had fled to avoid hearing what was not intended for him, before Caroline replied, in a low, agitated voice,

"I think and hope you are mistaken; but his constancy and disinterestedness shall be tried and proved. I would rather any man should cut my throat for money, than marry me for it. A girl of fortune, like Midas, turns all who look on her into gold; and I am not a gem to attract many lovers, without a very brilliant setting. I have a romantic desire to be chosen for myself alone—a vain dream perhaps never to be realized, unless young De Lancey prove constant. If not, I mean to declare war upon all mankind—to be a perfect Captain De Crespigny for flirtations!—to talk to gentlemen, ridicule, mortify, and humble them!—to do everything, in short, but love or marry any one of them!"

Though Caroline spoke these words in a tone of lively badinage, there was a tremulous bitterness in her manner, as she turned away, and contemptuously threw upon the table a massive gold chain which she usually wore, saying, "Lovers! I'll get fifty, and break the heart of every one of them!"

When Captain De Crespigny next visited Portobello, during a review of his regiment, he was surprised to see the well-remembered windows of Rosemount Villa closed, and a ticket suspended over the door, intimating that it was "to be sold or let, furnished or unfurnished; entrance immediately; rent moderate!" and with a feeling of relief he dismissed the whole affair from his thoughts, and the whole family of Smythes from his memory for ever, while humming one of his favorite airs,

"It is good to be merry and wise,

It is good to be honest and true;

It is good to be off with the old love,

Before you be on with the new."