ied Jemmy. "There's gintlemen enough o' the name--I'm
afraid one too many."

"Well," exclaimed his wife, assuming something as near to her conception
of the look of a martyr as possible, "I'm sufferin' at all events; but
I know my crown's before me."

"Sich as it is," replied her husband, "I dare say it is."

"I'll not be back for a few hours, Hycy; an'--but here's the car. Come
fardher up, Patsy."

Hycy politely handed his mother out, and assisted her on the car. "Of
course, he'll discover it all," said he, laughing.

"I know he will," she replied; "but when it's over, it's over, and
that's all."

Jemmy now met his son at the hall-door, and asked him if he knew where
his mother had gone.

"I really cannot undertake to say," replied the other. "Mrs. Burke,
father, is a competent judge of her own notions; but I presume to think
that she may take a drive upon her own car, without being so severely,
if not ungenerously catechised about it. I presume to think so, sir; but
I daresay I am wrong, and that even that is a crime on my part."

His father made no reply, but proceeded at an easy and thoughtful pace
to join his men in the field where they were at labor.

Hycy, after his mother's return that evening, seemed rather in low
spirits, if one could form any correct estimate of his character by
appearances. He was very silent, and somewhat less given to those broken
snatches of melody than was his wont; and yet a close observer might
have read in his deportment, and especially in the peculiar expression
of his eye, that which seemed to indicate anything rather than
depression or gloom. His silence, to such an observer, might have
appeared rather the silence of satisfaction and triumph, than of
disappointment or vexation.

His father, indeed, saw little of him that night, in consequence of the
honest man having preferred the hob of his wealthy and spacious kitchen
to the society of his wife and son in the parlor. The next morning,
however, they met at breakfast, as usual, when Hycy, after some ironical
compliments to his father's good taste, asked him, "if he would do him
the favor to step towards the stable and see his purchase."

"You don't mane Crazy Jane?" said the other, coolly.

"I do," replied Hycy; "and as I set a high value on your opinion,
perhaps you would be kind enough to say what you think of her."

Now, Hycy never for a moment dreamt that his father would have taken him
at his word, and we need