I. LA NINETTA

"How sweete and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beautie of thy budding name."

Some years passed over, and the name of Roland Cashel ceased to be
uttered, or his memory even evoked, in that capital where once his
wealth, his eccentricities, and his notoriety had been the theme of
every tongue. A large neglected-looking house, with closed shutters and
grass-grown steps, would attract the attention of some passing stranger
to ask whom it belonged to, but the name of Mr. Cashel was almost all
that many knew of him, and a vague impression that he was travelling in
some remote and faraway land.

Tubbermore, too, fell back into its former condition of ruin and decay.
No one seemed to know into whose hands the estate had fallen, but
the talismanic word "Chancery" appeared to satisfy every inquiry, and
account for a desolation that brooded over the property and all who
dwelt on it. The very "Cottage" had yielded to the course of time, and
little remained of it save a few damp discolored walls and blackened
chimneys; while here and there a rare shrub, or a tree of foreign
growth, rose among the rank weeds and thistles, to speak of the culture
which once had been the pride of this lovely spot.

Had there been a "curse upon the place" it could not have been more
dreary and sad-looking!

Of the gate-lodge, where Keane lived, a few straggling ruins alone
remained, in a corner of which a miserable family was herded together,
their wan looks and tattered clothing showing that they were dependent
for existence on the charity of the very poor. These were Keane's wife
and children, to whom he never again returned. There was a blight over
everything. The tenantry themselves, no longer subject to the visits of
the agent, the stimulus to all industry withdrawn, would scarcely labor
for their own support, but passed their lives in brawls and quarrels,
which more than once had led to a felon's sentence. The land lay
untilled; the cattle, untended, strayed at will through the unfenced
fields. The villages on the property were crammed by a host of runaway
wretches whose crimes had driven them from their homes, till at length
the district became the plague-spot of the country, where, even
at noonday, few strangers were bold enough to enter, and the word
"Tub-bermore" had a terrible significance in the neighborhood round
about.

Let us now turn for th