She never finished the word, for, maddened by the continual recurrence
of that odious monosyllable, I shouted to her to 'hold tight by my
waist,' and, giving Daisy the spur, in a minute sprang with Nora over
the parapet into the deep water below. I don't know why, now--whether
it was I wanted to drown myself and Nora, or to perform an act that
even Captain Quin should crane at, or whether I fancied that the enemy
actually was in front of us, I can't tell now; but over I went. The
horse sank over his head, the girl screamed as she sank and screamed as
she rose, and I landed her, half fainting, on the shore, where we were
soon found by my uncle's people, who returned on hearing the screams. I
went home, and was ill speedily of a fever, which kept me to my bed for
six weeks; and I quitted my couch prodigiously increased in stature,
and, at the same time, still more violently in love than I had been even
before. At the commencement of my illness, Miss Nora had been pretty
constant in her attendance at my bedside, forgetting, for the sake of
me, the quarrel between my mother and her family; which my good mother
was likewise pleased, in the most Christian manner, to forget. And, let
me tell you, it was no small mark of goodness in a woman of her haughty
disposition, who, as a rule, never forgave anybody, for my sake to give
up her hostility to Miss Brady, and to receive her kindly. For, like a
mad boy as I was, it was Nora I was always raving about and asking for;
I would only accept medicines from her hand, and would look rudely and
sulkily upon the good mother, who loved me better than anything else
in the world, and gave up even her favourite habits, and proper and
becoming jealousies, to make me happy.

As I got well, I saw that Nora's visits became daily more rare: 'Why
don't she come?' I would say, peevishly, a dozen times in the day;
in reply to which query, Mrs. Barry would be obliged to make the best
excuses she could find,--such as that Nora had sprained her ankle, or
that they had quarrelled together, or some other answer to soothe me.
And many a time has the good soul left me to go and break her heart in
her own room alone, and come back with a smiling face, so that I should
know nothing of her mortification. Nor, indeed, did I take much pains to
ascertain it: nor should I, I fear, have been very much touched even had
I discovered it; for the commencement of manhood, I think, is the period
of our extremest selfis