"The majjor is no way down-hearted," he said, "and he ordered me to
give his jewty and riverence, and obligations, to his honoured mother
and his sisters. 'Tell 'em, Mike,' says he, says the majjor, 'that I
feels for 'em, all the same as if I was their own fader; and tell 'em,'
says he, 'to keep up their spirits, and all will come right in the ind.
This is a throublesome wor-r-ld, but they that does their jewties to
God and man, and the church, will not fail, in the long run, to wor-r-k
their way t'rough purgatory even, into paradise.'"

"Surely my son--my dear Robert--never sent us such a message as this,
Michael?"

"Every syllable of it, and a quantity moor that has slipped my memory,"
answered the Irishman, who was inventing, but who fancied he was
committing a very pious fraud--"'Twould have done the Missuses heart
good to have listened to the majjor, who spoke more in the
cha_rack_ter of a praist, like, than in that of a souldier."

All three of the ladies looked a little abashed, though there was a
gleam of humour about the mouth of Maud, that showed she was not very
far from appreciating the Irishman's report at its just value. As for
Mrs. Willoughby and Beulah, less acquainted with Mike's habits, they
did not so readily penetrate his manner of substituting his own
desultory thoughts for the ideas of others.

"As I am better acquainted with Mike's language, dear mother"--
whispered Maud--"perhaps it will be well if I take him into the library
and question him a little between ourselves about what actually passed.
Depend on it, I shall get the truth."

"Do, my child, for it really pains me to hear Robert so much
misrepresented--and, as Evert must now begin to have ideas, I really do
not like that his uncle should be so placed before the dear little
fellow's mind."

Maud did not even smile at this proof of a grandmother's weakness,
though she felt and saw all its absurdity. Heart was ever so much
uppermost with the excellent matron, that it was not easy for those she
loved to regard anything but her virtues; and least of all did her
daughter presume to indulge in even a thought that was ludicrous at her
expense. Profiting by the assent, therefore, Maud quietly made a motion
for Mike to follow, and proceeded at once to the room she had named.

Not a word was exchanged between the parties until both were in the
library, when Maud carefully closed the door, her face pale as marble,
and stood looking inquir