ul when we sit together in the
drawing-room; and she often laughs more heartily than I ever knew her to
do before in my life. Now, do you think, Doldrum, if she was breaking
her heart about Reilly that she would be in such spirits?"

"No, sir; she would be melancholy and silent, and would neither sing,
nor laugh, nor play; at least I felt, so when I was in love with Miss
Swithers, who kept me in a state of equilibrium for better than two
years;--but that wasn't the worst of it, for she knocked the loyalty
clean out of me besides--indeed, so decidedly so that I never once sang
'Lillibullero' during the whole period of my attachment, and be hanged
to her."

"And what became of her?"

"Why, she married my clerk, who used to serve my love-letters upon her;
and when I expected to come in by execution--that is, by marriage--that
cursed little sheriff, Cupid, made a return of _nulla bona_. She and Sam
Snivel--a kind of half Puritan--entered a _dis_appearance, and I never
saw them since; but I am told they are in America. From what you tell
me, sir, I have no doubt but Miss Folliard will make a capital witness.
In fact, Reilly ought to feel proud of the honor of being hanged by her
evidence; she will be a host in herself."

We have already stated that the leading counsel against Reilly had
succeeded in getting his trial postponed until Miss Folliard should
arrive at a sufficient state of health to appear against him. In the
meantime, the baronet's trial, which was in a political, indeed,
we might say, a national point of view, of far more importance than
Reilly's, was to come on next day. In the general extent of notoriety
or fame, Reilly had got in advance--though not much--of his implacable
rival. The two trials were, in fact, so closely united by the relative
position of the parties that public opinion was strangely and strongly
divided between them. Reilly and his _Cooleen Bawn_ had, by the unhappy
peculiarity of their fate, excited the interest of all the youthful and
loving part of society--an interest which was necessarily reflected
upon Whitecraft, as Reilly's rival, independently of the hold which
his forthcoming fate had upon grave and serious politicians. Reilly's
leading counsel, Fox, a man of great judgment and ability, gave it as
his opinion that in consequence of the exacerbated state of feeling
produced against the Catholics by the prosecution of Whitecraft--to
appease whom, the opinion went that it was inst