"Well, well!" I said; "you will come
down and see my friends."

I told you, Tom, that this room was at the
end of a long corridor. At the lower end,
this corridor was crossed by another, a shorter
one, from which the stairs descended. As
my uncle and I turned the corner proceeding
towards the stairs a door opened suddenly
before us, and two womanly figures appeared
on the threshold, thrown forward by the
firelight from the chamber behind them.
Lucretia Fitzgibbon with her arm thrown
gracefully round the waist of Peg O'Shaughnessy.
Did the star of all the country drawing-
rooms mean to patronise the poor little
black sheep from the mountains on this her first
entrance into society? The doors of their chambers
stood opposite on the passage. Lucretia had
kindly fluttered across, introduced herself to
the trembling débutante, and taken her under
her wing. "Good Lucretia!" I had almost
cried; but the hall lights fell full on the two
faces as they descended, and I thought the
sparkle of her eyes and teeth more false than
they had seemed before. My lady was dressed
in voluminous folds of amber silk, bedizened
with laces and diamonds; Peg was dressed
in a straight black gown of an antiquated
brocade, which she must have ransacked from
some great-grandmother's wardrobe, standing
on some dim upper passage of Castle Shaughnessy.
She had folds of crimped white muslin
at her throat and wrists, and a black ribbon
twisted about her head, gathering up her crisp
hair, and tied in a little knot upon her crown.
As they swept down before us into the light
below, my uncle Giles pinched my arm so
wickedly that I started:

"Who is that woman, nephew? By all the
diamonds that ever blazed, I have not seen such
a woman since I was a boy!"

"Which?" I asked.

"Not the flashy yellow one," he answered,
"but the one with her head tied up."

This was the beginning of my uncle's
admiration for Peg. In the drawing-room we
found the ladies in full expectation, and quite
prepared to make a lion of him. The news of
the wonderful coffer had reached them, and the
fetching of the smith had caused no little
excitement. It was current that some
extraordinary locks were to be put upon the chamber
doors, of which only Giles Humphrey and his
servant knew the secret, and that the windows
were to be barred outside like the windows
of a prison. Even Peg's arrival was now a
matter of small importance. There never was
such a hero as Giles Humphrey that night.
He sat in the warmest corner by the fire, and
monopolised the snuggest chair. He wore
rings worth a king's ransom, and, audaciously
defying custom, wore a gown lined with the
costliest fur. He supported his feet on a
footstool, while his black servant wrapped his
knees in a royal rug. Then he spoke to the
ladies with a mischievous rudeness, while his
eyes paid them homage every moment. And
then he might virtually be said to be sitting on
that wonderful coffer stuffed with riches, which
no doubt all present saw in their mind's
eye supporting his puny limbs, but which, in
reality, stood modestly hidden in its corner up-
stairs under the shelter of a gorgeous piece of
tapestry, flaming in gold and colours. And
when I conducted its owner to his chamber that
night the black man was squatting upon it with
crossed legs, like a grotesque carving on a
whimsical pedestal. He turned a somersault upon it,
by way of obeisance, when his master appeared,
and, while I stayed, presented a long cane, from
which Giles Humphrey drew a glittering sword.
"This is my bedfellow," he said, grinning
over it, and placing it on his pillow. "I hate
locks, for fear of fire," with a glance of alarm
over his shoulder at the blazing grate. "I will
not be locked up, to run the risk of being burnt
to death. But if any of the people in your
house think to meddle with my little box over
there"—he raised his voice, and seizing the
sword again, brandished it at the black servant,
and chased him out of the room, bidding him go
and tell about the weapon in the servants' hall.

From the time of my arrival at Ballyhuckamore
to that night, I had found myself
the lion of the neighbourhood, and had had the
felicity of knowing that I was the most important
among the men in those days assembled under
my roof. But now all was changed. The days of
my greatness were over. A mightier than I had
arisen, and another king reigned in my stead.

I should not have minded if they had elected
Gorman Tracey, or some one of the many decent
fellows about me, to fill my place, but it was
irritating to see the worship transferred from
one's manly self to the shrivelled face and
shrieking voice of the owner of a box up-stairs;
to see the silks and muslins making their
genuflexions at the shrine of a mere mummy; to
know that a heartless machine was receiving the
flattery of mammas; that a capricious idiotic
will was directing the motions of blushing hand-
maidens. And the hardest part, the very worst
of it all, was that Peg O'Shaughnessy was the
foremost of the band of sirens who sang round
Giles Humphrey's chair.

For here I will own to you, my Tom, that by
this time the stray little black sheep from
the mountains had made herself a fold in
your friend's foolish heart. Was it fate so
relentless, or that quaint black gown so demure,
or a head of crisp fair hair, or a pair of steady
grey eyes, or was it a very sweet voice full of
musical dignity, or a timid step which seemed
always owning itself a trespasser when treading
my Ballyhuckamore carpets?—Was it all or any
of these things which transformed your sober
friend into the most loving of jealous lovers,
crafty enough to weigh little words, and count
up smiles, and disregard all worldly wisdom?
You cannot tell me, and assuredly I cannot tell
you; but in that frosty house-warming season Peg
bloomed up under my eyes the only blossom of
her sex I had ever coveted for my own wearing.