remarkably rapid, and we need not say that he
allowed no grass to grow under his feet while getting over his journey.
On arriving at Summerfield Cottage, he learned that Mrs. Mainwaring was
in the garden; and on stating that he had a letter to deliver into her
own hands, that lady desired him to be brought in, as she was then in
conversation with her daughter, who had been compelled at length to
fly from the brutality of her husband, and return once more to the
protection of her mother's roof. On opening the letter and looking at
it, she started, and turning to her daughter said,

"You must excuse me, my dear Maria, for a few moments, but don't forget
to finish what you were telling me about this unfortunate young man,
Fenton, as he, you say, calls himself, from Ballytrain."

"Hello!" thought Dandy, "here's a discovery. By the elevens, I'll hould
goold to silver that this is poor Fenton that disappeared so suddenly."

"I beg your pardon, miss," said he, addressing Mrs. Scarman as an
unmarried lady, as he perceived that she was the person from whom he
could receive the best intelligence on the subject; "I hope it's no
offence, miss, to ax a question?"

"None, certainly, my good man," replied her mother, "provided it be a
proper one."

"I think, miss," he continued, "that you were mentioning something to
this lady about a young man named Fenton, from Ballytrain?"

"I was," replied Mrs. Scarman, "certainly; but what interest can you
have in him?"

"If he's the young man I mane," continued Dandy, "he's not quite steady
in the head sometimes."

"If he were, he would not be in his present abode," replied the lady.

"And pray, miss--beg pardon again," said Dandy, with the best bow and
scrape he could manage; "pray, miss, might I be so bould as to ask where
that is?"

Mrs. Scarman looked at her mother. "Mamma," said she, "but, bless me!
what is the matter? you are in tears."

"I will tell you by and by, my dear Maria," replied her mother; "but you
were going to ask me something--what was it?"

"This man," replied her daughter, "wishes to know the abode of the
person I was speaking about."

"Pray, what is his motive? What is your motive, my good man, for asking
such a question?"

"Bekaise, ma'am," replied Dandy, "I happen to know a gentleman who has
been for some time on the lookout for him, and wishes very much to find
where he is. If it be the young man I spake of, he disappeared some
three or four months ag