er phrase of his:--

'I trust I have said nothing to hurt the feelings of any of my
fellow-countrymen.'

Just one quotation--and only a little one--which is not mine, but the
warning which Sheridan Le Fanu, author of that capital novel _Uncle
Silas_, gave in the _Dublin University Magazine_ against matrimony:--

'Marriage is like the smallpox. A man may have it mildly, but he
generally carries the marks of it with him to his grave.'

And very true too in his division of an Irishman's life into three
parts:--

'The first is that in which he is plannin' and conthrivin' all sorts of
villainy and rascality; that is the period of youth and innocence. The
second is that in which he is puttin' into practice the villainy and
rascality he contrived before; that is the prime of life or the flower
of manhood. The third and last period is that in which he is makin' his
soul and preparin' for another world; that is the period of dotage.'

Shakespeare's seven ages of man may have been more poetical, but it does
not betray a closer grip of the Irish temperament.

My other appearance as a literary ghost or rather as an anonymous
contributor was when I supplied Mrs. O'Connell with stories for _The
Last Count of the Irish Brigade_. That was about twenty years ago, and
therefore long after the death of the hero who was uncle to the
Liberator.

The writer was a daughter of Charles Bianconi, the originator of all the
mail-cars in Ireland, who owned at one time sixteen hundred horses, and
always laughed at the idea of any violence on the part of the peasantry,
pointing out that though his cars daily covered four thousand miles in
twenty-two counties, no injury was ever done to any of his property.

Mrs. O'Connell was married to a nephew of the great Dan, and he
represented Kerry in Parliament for nearly thirty years. He was an
intimate friend of Thackeray's, and gave him all the idioms of his
delightful Irish ballads. This O'Connell was a clever, amusing fellow,
and precious idle into the bargain.

I remember one story he told me.

Mrs. MacCarthy, near Millstreet, had a son, a small proprietor, and he
got married. The mother-in-law lived with the daughter-in-law, who had
rather grand ideas, and set up as parlour-maid in the house a raw lass
just taken from the dairy.

One afternoon old Mrs. MacCarthy saw the parish priest coming to call,
and told the girl if he asked for Mrs. MacCarthy to say she was not in
but the dowager was