the whole thing at sizes
and sevens."

Now, though Tony neither knew what the "whole thing" meant, nor the dire
consequences to which his friend's anger might have consigned it, he
muttered something that sounded like a hope that he would not leave
Europe to shift for herself at such a moment.

"Let them not drive me to it, that's all," said he, haughtily; and he
arose and walked up and down with an air of defiance. "The Lyles do not
see this,--Lady Lyle especially. She wants a peerage for her daughter,
but ambition is not always scrupulous."

"I always liked her the least of them," muttered Tony, who never could
forget the sharp lesson she administered to him.

"She 'll make herself more agreeable to you now, Master Tony," said
Skeff, with a dry laugh.

"And why so?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No."

"On your word?".

"On my word, I cannot."

"Don't you think Mr. Butler of something or other in Herefordshire is
another guess man from Tony Butler of nowhere in particular?"

"Ah! I forgot my change of fortune: but if I had ever remembered it, I
'd never have thought so meanly of _her_."

"That's all rot and nonsense. There's no meanness in a woman wanting
to marry her daughter well, any more than in a man trying to get
a colonelcy or a legation for his son. You were no match for Alice
Trafford three months ago. Now both she and her mother will think
differently of your pretensions."

"Say what you like of the mother, but you shall not impute such motives
to Alice."

"Don't you get red in the face and look like a tiger, young man, or
I 'll take my leave and send that old damsel here with the ice-pail to
you."

"It was the very thing I liked in you," muttered Tony, "that you never
did impute mean motives to women."

"My poor Tony! the fellow who has seen life as I have, who knows
the thing in its most minute anatomy, comes out of the investigation
infernally case-hardened; he can't help it. I love Alice. Indeed, if I
had not seen Bella, I think I should have married Alice. There, you are
getting turkey-cock again. Let us talk of something else. What the deuce
was it I wanted to ask you?--something about that great Irish monster
in the next room, the fellow that sings all day: where did you pick him
up?"

Tony made no reply, but lay with his hand over his eyes, while Skeff
went on rambling over the odds and ends he had picked up in the course
of Rory Quin's story, and the devoted love he bore to Tony him