instant after the vessel sheered off
from the pier, and got under way. The poor boy stood upon a block of
granite, waving his cap over his head. He tried a faint cheer, but it
was scarcely audible; another, it too failed. He looked wildly around
him on the strange, unknown faces, as if a scene of desolation had
fallen on him, burst into a torrent of tears, and fled wildly from the
spot. And thus I took my leave of Ireland.

At this period of my narrative I owe it to my reader--I owe it to
myself--to apologise for the mention of incidents, places, and people
that have no other bearing on my story than in the impression they
made upon me while yet young. When I arrived in Ireland I knew scarcely
anything of the world. My opportunities had shown me life only through
the coloured gloss of certain fashionable prejudices; but of the real
character, motives, and habitual modes of acting and thinking of others,
still more of myself, I was in total ignorance. The rapidly succeeding
incidents of Irish life--their interest, variety, and novelty--all
attracted and excited me; and without ever stopping to reflect upon
causes, I found myself becoming acquainted with facts. That the
changeful pictures of existence so profusely scattered through the land
should have made their impression upon me is natural enough; and because
I have found it easier and pleasanter to tell my reader the machinery of
this change in me than to embody that change itself, is the reason why
I have presented before him tableaux of life under so many different
circumstances, and when, frequently, they had no direct relation to the
current of my own fate and the story of my own fortunes. It is enough
of myself to say, that, though scarcely older in time, I had grown so
in thought and feeling. If I felt, on the one hand, how little my
high connections and the position in fashionable life which my family
occupied availed me, I learned, on the other, to know that friends,
and stanch ones, could be made at once, on the emergency of a moment,
without the imposing ceremony of introduction and the diplomatic
interchange of visits. And now to my story.

CHAPTER XLVII. LONDON

It was late when I arrived in London and drove up to my father's house.
The circumstances under which I had left Ireland weighed more heavily on
me as I drew near home, and as I reflected over the questions I should
be asked and the explanations I should be expected to afford; and I half