now I look ill," replied the other; "and I know too that these
hints are sent to us in mercy, with a fatherly design on the part of our
Creator, that we may make the necessary preparations for the change, the
awful change that is before us."

"Oh, indeed, sir, it's true enough," replied Corbet, whose visage had
become much blanker at this serious intimation, notwithstanding his
hypocrisy; "it's true enough, sir; too true, indeed, if we could only
remember it as we ought. Have you been unwell, sir?"

"Not in my bodily health, thank God, but I've got into trouble; and what
is more, I'm coming to you, Anthony, with a firm I hope that you will
bring me out of it."

"The trouble can't be very great then," replied the apprehensive old
knave, "or I wouldn't be able to do it."

"Anthony," said the priest, "I have known you a long time, now forty
years at least, and you need not be told that I've stood by some of
your friends when they wanted it. When your daughter ran away with that
M'Bride, I got him to marry her, a thing he was very unwilling to
do; and which I believe, only for me, he would not have done. On that
occasion you know I advanced twenty guineas to enable them to begin the
world, and to keep the fellow with her; and I did this all for the best,
and not without the hope either that you would see me reimbursed for
what you ought, as her father, to have given them yourself. I spoke to
you once or twice about it, but you lent me the deaf ear, as they call
it, and from that day to this you never had either the manliness or the
honesty to repay me."

"Ay," replied Corbet, with one of his usual grins, "you volunteered to
be generous to a profligate, who drank it, and took to the army."

"Do you then volunteer to be generous to an honest man; I will neither
drink It nor take to the army. If he took to the army, he didn't do
so without taking your daughter along with him. I spoke to Sir Edward
Gourlay, who threatened to write to his colonel; and through the
interference of the same humane gentleman I got permission for him to
bring his wife along with him. These are circumstances that you ought
not to forget, Anthony."

"I don't forget them, but sure you're always in somebody's affairs;
always goin' security for some of your poor parishioners; and then, when
they're not able to pay, down comes the responsibility upon you."

"I cannot see a poor honest man, struggling and industrious, at a loss
for a friendly act.