hat condition seems
enviable to men on their legs. And similarly with death; we'd rather not,
because of a qualm, but the picture of the finish of the leap across is a
taking one. These chops are done as if Nature had mellowed their
juiciness.'

'They are so nice,' Kathleen said.

'You deserve them, if ever girl in this world!'

'I sat on deck all night, and Mr. Colesworth would keep me company.'

'He could hardly do less, having the chance. But that notwithstanding,
I'm under an obligation to your cavalier. And how did you find Ireland,
sir? You've made acquaintance with my cousin, young Mr. Patrick
O'Donnell, I rejoice to hear.'

'Yes, through his hearing or seeing my name and suspecting I had a
sister,' said Mr. Colesworth, who was no longer in the resemblance of a
gaping oyster on the borders of the ebb. 'The country is not disturbed.'

'So the doctor thinks his patient is doing favourably! And you cottoned
to Patrick? And I don't wonder. Where was it?'

'We met in Trieste. He was about to start by one of the Austrian boats
for the East.'

'Not disturbed! no! with a rotten potato inside it paralysing digestion!'
exclaimed Con. 'Now Patrick had been having a peep at Vienna, hadn't he?'

'He had; he was fresh from Vienna when I met him. As to Ireland, the
harvest was only middling good last year.'

'And that's the bit of luck we depend on. A cloud too much, and it's
drowned! Had he seen, do you know, anybody in Vienna?--you were not long
together at Trieste?'

Mr. Colesworth had sufficient quickness to perceive that the two
questions could be answered as one, and saying: 'He was disappointed,'
revealed that he and Patrick had been long enough together to come to
terms of intimacy.

'To be sure, he gave you a letter of introduction to his family!' said
Con. 'And permit me to add, that Patrick's choice of a friend is mine on
trust. The lady he was for seeing, Mr. Colesworth, was just then
embarking on an adventure of a romantic character, particularly well
suited to her nature, and the end of it was a trifle sanguinary, and she
suffered a disappointment also, though not perhaps on that account.'

'I heard of it in England last year,' said Mr. Colesworth. 'Did she come
through it safely?'

'Without any personal disfigurement: and is in England now, under her
father's roof, meditating fresh adventures.'

Kathleen cried: 'Ye 're talking of the lady who was Miss Adister--I can
guess--Ah!' She humped her s