dier by name.'

After some further words of advice respecting the future, and some few
details of family matters, he concluded by entrusting to my mother the
mention of what she herself professed to think lay more in her peculiar
province.

As usual, her letter opened with some meteorological observations upon
the climate of England for the preceding six weeks; then followed a
journal of her own health, whose increasing delicacy, and the imperative
necessity of being near Doctor Y------, rendered a journey to Ireland
too dangerous to think of.

'Yes, my dearest boy,' wrote she, 'nothing but this would keep me from
you a moment; however, I am much relieved at learning that you are now
rapidly recovering, and hope soon to hear of your return to Dublin. It
is a very dreadful thing to think of, but perhaps, upon the whole, it
is better that you did kill this Mr. Burke. De Grammont tells me that
a _mauvaise tete_ like that must be shot sooner or later. It makes
me nervous to dwell on this odious topic, so that I shall pass on to
something else.

'The horrid little man that brought your letters, and who calls himself
a servant of Captain O'Grady, insisted on seeing me yesterday. I never
was more shocked in my life. From what he says, I gather that he may
be looked on as rather a favourable specimen of the natives. They must
indeed be a very frightful people; and although he assured me he would
do me no injury, I made Thomas stay in the room the entire time, and
told Chubbs to give the alarm to the police if he heard the slightest
noise. The creature, however did nothing, and I have quite recovered
from my fear already.

'What a picture, my dear boy, did he present to me of your conduct and
habits! Your intimacy with that odious family I mentioned in my last
seems the root of all your misfortunes. Why will such people thrust
themselves forward? What do they mean by inviting you to their frightful
parties? Have they not their own peculiar horrors?--not but I must
confess that they are more excusable than you; and I cannot conceive
how you could so soon have forgotten the lessons instilled into you from
your earliest years. As your poor dear grandfather, the admiral, used to
say, a vulgar acquaintance is a shifting sand; you can never tell where
you won't meet it--always at the most inopportune moment; and then,
if you remark, your underbred people are never content with a quiet
recognition, but they must always indulge in