t box of death, with which
he proposed to sacrifice his enemies; but the Captain did not tell him
that he had actually written and sent a challenge to Major Pendennis,
and Mr. Bows therefore rather disregarded the pistols in the present
instance.

At this juncture Miss Fotheringay returned to the common sitting-room
from her private apartment, looking perfectly healthy, happy, and
unconcerned, a striking and wholesome contrast to her father, who was in
a delirious tremor of grief, anger, and other agitation. She brought in
a pair of ex-white satin shoes with her, which she proposed to rub as
clean as might be with bread-crumb: intending to go mad with them upon
next Tuesday evening in Ophelia, in which character she was to reappear
on that night.

She looked at the papers on the table; stopped as if she was going to
ask a question, but thought better of it, and going to the cupboard,
selected an eligible piece of bread wherewith she might operate on the
satin slippers: and afterwards coming back to the table, seated herself
there commodiously with the shoes, and then asked her father, in her
honest, Irish brogue, "What have ye got them letthers, and pothry, and
stuff, of Master Arthur's out for, Pa? Sure ye don't want to be reading
over that nonsense."

"O Emilee!" cried the Captain, "that boy whom I loved as the boy of
mee bosom is only a scoundthrel, and a deceiver, mee poor girl:" and he
looked in the most tragical way at Mr. Bows, opposite; who, in his turn,
gazed somewhat anxiously at Miss Costigan.

"He! pooh! Sure the poor lad's as simple as a schoolboy," she said. "All
them children write verses and nonsense."

"He's been acting the part of a viper to this fireside, and a traitor
in this familee," cried the Captain. "I tell ye he's no better than an
impostor."

"What has the poor fellow done, Papa?" asked Emily.

"Done? He has deceived us in the most athrocious manner," Miss Emily's
papa said. "He has thrifled with your affections, and outraged my own
fine feelings. He has represented himself as a man of property, and it
turruns out that he is no betther than a beggar. Haven't I often told ye
he had two thousand a year? He's a pauper, I tell ye, Miss Costigan; a
depindent upon the bountee of his mother; a good woman, who may marry
again, who's likely to live for ever, and who has but five hundred a
year. How dar he ask ye to marry into a family which has not the means
of providing for ye? Ye've been gro