you have received a full
pardon for past offences, and a restitution of your rights, and I
am only too glad to be able to retire from the false position in
which I was placed, and by which I incurred the hostility and
dislike of my neighbours and tenants. As you know, I have lived an
almost solitary life here, and have spent far less than the income
of the estate. I am well aware that, acting as I have done as your
trustee, you have a right to demand from me an account of the
rents I have received; but I trust that you will not press this
matter, as you'll at once come in for the receipt of the rents;
and I shall be enabled to live in comfort, in Dublin, upon the
savings I have effected, and a small property I received as a
younger brother's portion.

You will, of course, understand why, during your stay here, I
refrained from any outward demonstrations of affection for you. I
felt that suspicions might have arisen, had I not done so, that
you were my brother's son, in which case the estate would surely
have been confiscated. Seeing that the bent of your inclinations
was for an active and stirring life, and as the English army was
barred to you, I thought it best that you should go abroad, and so
be out of the way until the time should come when matters would so
quieten down, in Ireland, that my influence might avail to secure
an indemnity for you for serving in France, and enable me to hand
over your estate to you.

Your affectionate uncle, John O'Carroll.

Gerald laughed aloud as he read the letter.

"Is it good news, your honour?" Mike, who happened to be busy in
the room, asked.

"Nothing could be better. My dear uncle has heard that Lord
Godolphin and the Earl of Galway have become my patrons, that the
queen has restored to me my rights, and Mr. Counsellor Fergusson
has taken up my case. He therefore declares that, as it was always
his intention to restore the estate to me, as soon as I could
safely return, he is now ready to do so, and only hopes that I
will not insist upon his handing over the back rents; which,
indeed, I question whether I could do, as the estate was granted
to him, personally, by the Government.

"However, of course I shall not press that. I shall be only too
glad to obtain possession without the scandal of having to show,
in the public courts, that my father's brother was a villain."

"The ould fox!" Mike exclaimed indignantly. "I felt sure, when you
told me what the counsellor had