that my mother bade me always
keep in my purse as a gentleman should. I did not care for drink, or
know the dreadful comfort of it in those days; but I thought of killing
myself and Nora, and most certainly of making away with Captain Quin!

At last, and at morning, the ball was over. The rest of our ladies went
off in the lumbering creaking old coach; Daisy was brought out, and Miss
Nora took her place behind me, which I let her do without a word. But we
were not half-a-mile out of town when she began to try with her coaxing
and blandishments to dissipate my ill-humour.

'Sure it's a bitter night, Redmond dear, and you'll catch cold without a
handkerchief to your neck.' To this sympathetic remark from the pillion,
the saddle made no reply.

'Did you and Miss Clancy have a pleasant evening, Redmond? You were
together, I saw, all night.' To this the saddle only replied by grinding
his teeth, and giving a lash to Daisy.

'O mercy! you'll make Daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature
you: and you know, Redmond, I'm so timid.' The pillion had by this
got her arm round the saddle's waist, and perhaps gave it the gentlest
squeeze in the world.

'I hate Miss Clancy, you know I do!' answers the saddle; 'and I only
danced with her because--because--the person with whom I intended to
dance chose to be engaged the whole night.'

'Sure there were my sisters,' said the pillion, now laughing outright in
the pride of her conscious superiority; 'and for me, my dear, I had
not been in the room five minutes before I was engaged for every single
set.'

'Were you obliged to dance five times with Captain Quin?' said I; and
oh! strange delicious charm of coquetry, I do believe Miss Nora Brady
at twenty-three years of age felt a pang of delight in thinking that she
had so much power over a guileless lad of fifteen. Of course she replied
that she did not care a fig for Captain Quin: that he danced prettily,
to be sure, and was a pleasant rattle of a man; that he looked well in
his regimentals too; and if he chose to ask her to dance, how could she
refuse him?

'But you refused me, Nora.'

'Oh! I can dance with you any day,' answered Miss Nora, with a toss
of her head; 'and to dance with your cousin at a ball, looks as if you
could find no other partner. Besides,' said Nora--and this was a
cruel, unkind cut, which showed what a power she had over me, and how
mercilessly she used it,--'besides, Redmond, Captain Quin's a man and