er and above good
friends now; but of this fact she assured me, and I'll tell you when and
how.

"We were quartered at Cork three years after we were at Weedon, and it
was our last year at home; and a great mercy that my dear girl spoke
in time, or where should we have been now? Well, one day, marching
home from parade, I saw a lady seated at an open window, by another who
seemed an invalid, and the lady at the window, who was dressed in the
profoundest mourning, cried out, with a scream, 'Gracious, heavens! it's
Mr. Haggarty of the 120th.'

"'Sure I know that voice,' says I to Whiskerton.

"'It's a great mercy you don't know it a deal too well,' says he: 'it's
Lady Gammon. She's on some husband-hunting scheme, depend on it, for
that daughter of hers. She was at Bath last year on the same errand, and
at Cheltenham the year before, where, Heaven bless you! she's as well
known as the "Hen and Chickens."'

"'I'll thank you not to speak disrespectfully of Miss Jemima Gam,' said
I to Whiskerton; 'she's of one of the first families in Ireland, and
whoever says a word against a woman I once proposed for, insults me,--do
you understand?'

"'Well, marry her, if you like,' says Whiskerton, quite peevish: 'marry
her, and be hanged!'

"Marry her! the very idea of it set my brain a-whirling, and made me a
thousand times more mad than I am by nature.

"You may be sure I walked up the hill to the parade-ground that
afternoon, and with a beating heart too. I came to the widow's house. It
was called 'New Molloyville,' as this is. Wherever she takes a house for
six months she calls it 'New Molloyville;' and has had one in Mallow,
in Bandon, in Sligo, in Castlebar, in Fermoy, in Drogheda, and the deuce
knows where besides: but the blinds were down, and though I thought I
saw somebody behind 'em, no notice was taken of poor Denny Haggarty,
and I paced up and down all mess-time in hopes of catching a glimpse of
Jemima, but in vain. The next day I was on the ground again; I was just
as much in love as ever, that's the fact. I'd never been in that way
before, look you; and when once caught, I knew it was for life.

"There's no use in telling you how long I beat about the bush, but when
I DID get admittance to the house (it was through the means of young
Castlereagh Molloy, whom you may remember at Leamington, and who was
at Cork for the regatta, and used to dine at our mess, and had taken a
mighty fancy to me)--when I DID get into t