"Wouldn't ye like to know him now?" she
said.

"I had no particular desire," I answered,
in freezing tones.

"Now, are you going to be jealous of the
poor fellow before seeing him? Then, I can
tell you, I like him better than anybody I
have ever seen yet."

I went home that night filled with a
new trouble. "Who was this wretched Nairo
that had come between me and my love?
Cold, hollow-hearted woman! Why torture
this faithful bosom? Nairo. What a name!
Italian, doubtless: some fellow with jet,
glossy moustaches and rings. A curled and
oiled Assyrian bull, like the man in Maud.
Pah! But let him beware—beware, I
say! Lambs have been known to cast their
skin and become lions! Nairo! indeed,—
ha! ha! the (what was the Irish word ?)
the spalpeen!—ha! ha! The spalpeen!
Och! whilliloo!" I continued, starting up,
with Hibernian associations crowding fast
upon me, "will anybody tread upon the tail
of my coat?" and I drew an imaginary
garment round the room triumphantly. Was not
this the custom at the fair—her fair, her
national fair! Ah, false, frail one—deluding
enchantress! angel! devil!

I was with her day after day. I infested
the house of the Penguins. I rushed unto her
exultingly, one morning,—"I know it," I
said, "I have found it. Only listen to me,"
and straight played off for her Ballymalony
Ora.

"Bravo!" she said. She was delighted.
"Go on. Play like that, if you want me to
like you! You should have been born an
Irishman. Nairo is an Irishman."

Ah! that accursed name! Confusion on his
banners wait! And yet I could take out
letters of naturalisation—or stay, did not my
grandfather's cousin marry a lady whose
stepfather's first wife had relatives in Cork ?
This must be looked into.

Mr. Nairo was already arrived, she told
me. He saw her every day. But, with
my penetration, it was easy to know that this
was but a blind: one of her little tricks for
plaguing my loving heart. I have a secret
feeling that I have grown to be beloved in
turn. What a change has come over Alfred
Hoblush, wrought all by her! We have
sung together duetts, even airs, from that
wicked, naughty opera, where she addresses
me with passion as Alfredo mio! and I
reciprocate with La Violetta mia! Improper,
charming, bewitching music! What
if I were her Alfredo really? This struggle in
my bosom must end. My flesh is all wasted
away. I must speak or die.

It was at the close of a beautiful evening in
the middle of the nineteenth, century, that a
solitary visitor might have been observed
pacing uneasily up and down the Penguins'
drawing-room. It was the unhappy Hoblush,
who had sent up word begging to see
Miss Loo for a few minutes in private. He
had made up his mind to put the fatal
question that morning. I hear her footstep;
she is coming,—my own, my sweet! Courage,
Hoblush!

I had it all off by heart. "Dear lady," I
said, " though knowing you but for a short
space, I may say that period seems to be
years. Your virtues, your perfections, are all
familiar to me. I know that"——

"Come, none of your blarneying, Mr.
Hoblush," the dear girl answered; "come
to the point at once. What are ye driving
at?"

"Blarneying!" I said, with vehemence,
"forbid it, Heaven! No, by Saint Kevin's
Bed!"—I had been diligently reading up
all the Hibernian traditions—" no, by Saint
Keven's Bed, I durst not."

"Be quick, then, Mr. Hoblush. I have to
go out with Mr. Nairo."

My lip curled. "Mr. Nairo's claims, I
suppose, are paramount?"

"They are," she said, quietly.

I regarded her fixedly for an instant.
"Go, false one!" I said.

"What do you mean, sir?" she returned,
rising.

"Ah, stay!" I said, frantically. "Forgive
me! I knew not what I said. Nay, you
must hear me; I have been silent too long."
And, sinking on my knees, I poured out all
my loves, hopes, and sorrows: how I had
worshipped her, and every particle of dust or
earth upon which she trod: how she was my
pearl of Shiraz, my opal of great price, my
Prince Regent, or Pitt diamond: how I was
but a body, and she the soul: how she was
my breath of life, my sustenance, my hope,
my joy, my—

The door was violently pushed open, and
then came bounding in something shaggy—
something panting. Two paws were on my
shoulder in an instant; and there was a
great black and white head and ivory jaws
beside my cheek. I could have died at that
moment. "Take him away!" I shrieked,
feebly.

"Down, Nairo!" she said, with her
handkerchief to her mouth.

But the horrible Newfoundland brute kept
on me still. His bark came as thunder to my
ears, and then I was grovelling on the floor
beneath him. There was an icy suffusion on
my brow. All I recollect afterwards, was his
cold nose sniffing at my throat; his two fiery
eyes glaring at me, and his hot breath upon
my cheeks.

Yes, I saw more than that. I saw the
cruel Irish maiden falling back on the sofa in
convulsions of laughter. For all that, it
nearly threw me into a fit, as might be
expected from my constitutional antipathy to
ferocious animals.

Speaking now as a third party, I may