leaves, when Clement Charlewood drove rapidly
up the main avenue leading to Cloncoolin. His
equipage was of a most nondescript kind. The
vehicle was an outside car, the cushions of which
were covered with very ragged and faded blue
cloth, and the whole machine showed a long and
complete estrangement from mop or brush. It
was drawn by a tall, bony, shambling, ill-groomed
quadruped, whose harness—which had seen
better days—was eked out by ends of old rope
and rusty iron buckles. The driver was a little,
round-shouldered, bow-legged, talkative old
man, whose costume was of an equally
incongruous character with the rest of the turn-out.
He wore fawn-coloured breeches and gaiters,
like those of a gentleman's groom, but had no
waistcoat over his clean ragged shirt, and his
outer garment was a heavy coachman's livery
coat with tarnished buttons, and so preposterously
too big for him that he had been obliged
to turn the cuffs of the sleeves half way up his
arms, in order to handle his reins. His wizened
face, ugly, cunning, and mobile as that of some
peculiarly vivacious old monkey—to which animal,
indeed, he bore a strong resemblance—was
surmounted by a desperately shabby and
battered sugar-loaf hat, in the band of which was
stuck a well-blackened dudeen.

This personage was the head ostler of the
chief inn at Kilclare, and the outside car and
the shambling horse equally belonged to that
establishment. Clement had come from
Ballyhacket by the stage-coach, and, on alighting at
the inn, had asked for a vehicle to take him to
Lady Popham's house with as little delay as
might be.

When, some three-quarters of an hour after
the appointed time, the "kyar" was announced
as being in readiness, and Clement descended
to the inn-yard, he stood aghast at the
spectacle of the carriage, horse, and driver, that
were to convey him to Lady Popham's mansion.

"Do you mean me to go upon that thing?"
said he, pointing to it in dismay.

A chorus of stable-helpers, chambermaid,
cook, waiter, and ragged urchins was in attendance,
and joined in a voluble assurance that
that, and no other, was the vehicle destined to
have the honour of conveying his "lordship" to
Cloncoolin.

"I—I'm afraid they won't let us in at the
lodge gate," said Clement, staring ruefully at
the ramshackle old machine, and speaking out
with true Hammerham bluntness the thought
that was in him.

"Divil doubt 'em," cried Tim Molloney,
adjusting his preposterous coat-cuffs, and twinkling
his keen monkey-like eyes with a sparkle of
indignation. Loud and unanimous support for
Tim Molloney from the chorus. "Sorra a fear
of that, at all, at all," pursued Tim, from his
place on the car.

"Is it my lady's lodge-keepers that 'ud be
afther refusing to let Mr. Donovan's kyar into
Cloncoolin?"

The chorus loftily contemptuous of so wild
a supposition.

"Sure don't they all know me, every mother's
son of them, these fifteen years?"

The chorus ready to make oath—and making
it—that every human being in Lady Popham's
employ loved Tim Molloney like a brother.

"And haven't I druv lashins of the quality,
the rale ould quality" (with an emphasis
sufficient to point the application of the phrase
to Clement's disadvantage), "to Cloncoolin
behoind Brian Boroo?"

Final and overwhelming burst of enthusiasm
on the part of the chorus, in the midst of which
Clement jumped into the car, and was driven
off with much ungainly shambling and clattering
of hoofs on the part of Brian Boroo, and loud
crackings of Tim Molloney's whip.

The old ostler triumphantly made good his
boast as to the certainty of his admission within
the park gates of Cloncoolin, and exchanged
familiar greetings with the lodge-keeper and his
wife.

As Brian Boroo, being incited to put forth
his mettle, dashed up the avenue at a pace
which threatened to dislocate the crazy old
vehicle altogether, Clement's heart sank a little
at the idea of the enterprise he was engaged in.

"I am afraid this lady will consider me
guilty of taking a great liberty," thought he; and
Clement, in his shyness, shrank from the prospect
of the coming interview. But, after all, what did it
matter? If he could only ascertain the truth
respecting Mabel, and be the means of averting
misery and ruin from her, it signified very little
what Lady Popham's opinion of him might be.

The footman, in answer to Clement's inquiries,
said that her ladyship was at home, but that he
could not affirm positively that she was
disengaged; if the gentleman would be kind enough
to send in his name, he would ascertain if her
ladyship could receive him.

"Your mistress does not know me personally,"
said Clement, "but take my card to her,
and say with my best compliments, that I have
come some distance expressly to see her, that
my time here is limited, and that I should
esteem it a great favour if she would grant me
an interview to-day."

The servant showed Clement across a spacious
hall, covered with large richly framed oil paintings
—most of them very coarsely executed—
and into a small room on the ground floor, where
he begged him to wait whilst he delivered the
message.

There were drawings on the walls here, too,
of no higher merit than the paintings in the
hall, and over the chimney-piece hung a large
portrait representing a handsome but effeminate
looking man, dressed in the costume of the days
of the Regency.

In a few minutes the servant returned very
hurriedly.

"My lady's compliments, sir," said he, "and
will you please to walk up-stairs directly?"

The man led the way up a noble old oak-
staircase, black and shiny as ebony, then through
a long suite of shady rooms, rich with satin,
velvet, and gilding, until they came to a small