hort conversation
which they had, he spoke abruptly, and with a flushed countenance; but
he was too shrewd to ask him why he seemed so. It was not, he knew, his
business to do so; and as the squire left the garden, to pass into
the house, he looked after him, and exclaimed to himself, "my certie,
there's a bee in that man's bonnet."

On going to the drawing-room, the squire found Mr. Brown there, and
Helen in tears.

"How!" he exclaimed, "what is this? Helen crying! Why, what's the
matter, my child? Brown, have you been scolding her, or reading her a
homily to teach her repentance. Confound me, but I know it would teach
her patience, at all events. What is the matter?"

"My dear Miss Folliard," said the clergyman, "if you will have the
goodness to withdraw, I will explain this shocking business to your
father."

"Shocking business! Why, in God's name, Brown, what has happened? And
why is my daughter in tears, I ask again?"

Helen now left the drawing-rooom, and Mr. Brown replied:

"Sir, a circumstance which, for baseness and diabolical iniquity, is
unparalleled in civilized society. I could not pollute your daughter's
ears by reciting it in her presence, and besides she is already aware of
it."

"Ay, but what is it? Confound you, don't keep me on tenter hooks."

"I shall not do so long, my dear friend. Who do you imagine your
daughter's maid--I mean that female attendant upon your pure-minded and
virtuous child--is?"

"Faith, go ask Sir Robert Whitecraft. It was he who recommended her;
for, on hearing that the maid she had, Ellen Connor, was a Papist,
he said he felt uneasy lest she might prevail on my daughter to turn
Catholic, and marry Reilly."

"But do you not know who the young woman that is about your daughter's
person is? You are, however, a father who loves your child, and I need
not ask such a question. Then, sir, I will tell you who she is. Sir,
she is one of Sir Robert Whitecraft's cast-off mistresses--a profligate
wanton, who has had a child by him."

The fiery old squire had been walking to and fro the room, in a state
of considerable agitation before--his mind already charged with the
same intelligence, as he had heard it from the gardener (Reilly). He
now threw himself into a chair, and' putting his hands before his face,
muttered out between his fingers--"D--n seize the villain! It is true,
then. Well, never mind, I'll demand satisfaction for this insult; I
am not too old to pull a trigger