mself, and felt, too,
that a red jacket would mightily become me! My mother said I was too
young to join the new regiment; but the fact was, that it was she
herself who was too poor, for the cost of a new uniform would have
swallowed up half her year's income, and she would only have her boy
appear in a way suitable to his birth, riding the finest of racers,
dressed in the best of clothes, and keeping the genteelest of company.

Well, then, the whole country was alive with war's alarums, the three
kingdoms ringing with military music, and every man of merit paying his
devoirs at the court of Bellona, whilst poor I was obliged to stay at
home in my fustian jacket and sigh for fame in secret. Mr. Mick came
to and fro from the regiment, and brought numerous of his comrades with
him. Their costume and swaggering airs filled me with grief, and Miss
Nora's unvarying attentions to them served to make me half wild. No one,
however, thought of attributing this sadness to the young lady's
score, but rather to my disappointment at not being allowed to join the
military profession.

Once the officers of the Fencibles gave a grand ball at Kilwangan, to
which, as a matter of course, all the ladies of Castle Brady (and a
pretty ugly coachful they were) were invited. I knew to what tortures
the odious little flirt of a Nora would put me with her eternal
coquetries with the officers, and refused for a long time to be one of
the party to the ball. But she had a way of conquering me, against which
all resistance of mine was in vain. She vowed that riding in a coach
always made her ill. 'And how can I go to the ball,' said she, 'unless
you take me on Daisy behind you on the pillion?' Daisy was a good
blood-mare of my uncle's, and to such a proposition I could not for my
soul say no; so we rode in safety to Kilwangan, and I felt myself as
proud as any prince when she promised to dance a country-dance with me.

When the dance was ended, the little ungrateful flirt informed me that
she had quite forgotten her engagement; she had actually danced the set
with an Englishman! I have endured torments in my life, but none like
that. She tried to make up for her neglect, but I would not. Some of the
prettiest girls there offered to console me, for I was the best dancer
in the room. I made one attempt, but was too wretched to continue, and
so remained alone all night in a state of agony. I would have played,
but I had no money; only the gold piece