s nothing more nor
less than a modern Macbeth. However, go on, and keep up your resolution;
effort will do much. I hope in this case--in both cases--it will do
all."

After some further conversation upon the matter in question, which it is
not our intention to detail here, the stranger made an excursion to
the country, and returned about six o'clock to his hotel. Here he
found Dandy Dulcimer before him, evidently brimful of some important
information on which he (Dandy) seemed to place a high value, and which
gave to his naturally droll countenance such an expression of mock
gravity as was ludicrous in the extreme.

"What is the matter, sir?" asked his master; "you look very big and
important just now. I hope you have not been drinking."

Dandy compressed his lips as if his master's fate depended upon his
words, and pointing with his forefinger in the direction of Wicklow,
replied:

"The deed is done, sir--the deed is done."

"What deed, sirra?"

"Weren't you tould the stuff that was in me?" he replied. "But God has
gifted me, and sure that's one comfort, glory be to his name. Weren't--"

"Explain yourself, sir!" said his master, authoritatively. "What do you
mean by the deed is done?' You haven't got married, I hope. Perhaps the
cousin you went to see was your sweetheart?"

"No, sir, I haven't got married. God keep me a little while longer from
sich a calamity? But I have put you in the way of being so."

"How, sirra--put me into a state of calamity? Do you call that a
service?"

"A state of repentance, sir, they say, is a state of grace; an' when
one's in a state of grace they can make their soul; and anything, you
know, that enables one to make his soul, is surely for his good."

"Why, then, say 'God forbid,' when I suppose you had yourself got
married?"

"Bekaise I'm a sinner, sir,--a good deal hardened or so,--and haven't
the grace even to wish for such a state of grace."

"Well, but what deed is this you have done? and no more of your
gesticulations."

"Don't you undherstand, sir!" he replied, extending the digit once more
in the same direction, and with the same comic significance.

"She's safe, sir. Miss Gourlay--I have her."

"How, you impudent scoundrel, what kind of language is this to apply to
Miss Gourlay?"

"Troth, an' I have her safe," replied the pertinacious Dandy. "Safe as
a hare in her form; but it is for your honor I have her. Cousin! oh, the
divil a cousin has Dandy widin the