h actual fire, he held him for a
moment as if in a vise, exclaiming, "Her consent, you villain!" But, as
if recollecting himself, he suddenly let him go, and said, calmly, "Go
on with what you were about to say."

"I have very little more to say, sir," replied Dandy; "herself and
Lord Dunroe is only waitin' till she gets well and then they're to be
married?"

"You said she gave her consent, did you not!"

"No doubt of it, sir, and that, I believe, is what's breakin' her
heart. However, it's not my affair to direct any one; still, if I was in
somebody's shoes, I know the tune I'd sing."

"And what tune would you sing?" asked his master.

Dandy sung the following stave, and, as he did it, he threw his comic
eye upon his master with such humorous significance that the latter,
although wrapped in deep reflection at the moment, on suddenly observing!
it, could not avoid smiling:

"Will you list, and come with me, fair maid?
Will you list, and come with me, fair maid?
Will you list, and come with me, fair maid?
And folly the lad with the white cockade?"

"If you haven't a good voice, sir, you could whisper the words into
her ear, and as you're so near the mouth--hem--a word to the wise--then
point to the chaise that you'll have standin' outside, and my life for
you, there's an end to the fees o' the docther."

His master, who had relapsed into thought before he concluded his
advice, looked at him without seeming to have heard it. He then
traversed the room several times, his chin supported by his finger and
thumb, after which he seemed to have formed a resolution.

"Go, sir," said he, "and put that letter to Father M'Mahon in the
post-office. I shall not want you for some time."

"Will I ordher a chaise, sir?" replied Dandy, with a serio-comic face.

One look from his master, however, sent him about his business; but
the latter could hear him lilting the "White Cockade," as he went down
stairs.

"Now," said he, when Dandy was gone, "can it be possible that she has
at length given her consent to this marriage? Never voluntarily. It
has been extorted by foul deceit and threatening, by some base fraud
practised upon her generous and unsuspecting nature. I am culpable
to stand tamely by and allow this great and glorious creature to be
sacrificed to a bad ambition, and a worse man, without coming to the
rescue. But, in the meantime, is this information true? Alas, I fear
it is; for I know the un