moked by! What fevered lips
have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by
women when she made that tea-plant; and with a little thought what a
series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble
round the tea-pot and cup! Melissa and Sacharissa are talking
love-secrets over it. Poor Polly has it and her lover's letters upon
the table; his letters who was her lover yesterday, and when it was with
pleasure, not despair, she wept over them. Mary tripping noiselessly
comes into her mother's bedroom, bearing a cup of the consoler to the
widow who will take no other food, Ruth is busy concocting it for her
husband, who is coming home from the harvest-field--one could fill a
page with hints for such pictures;--finally, Mrs. Shandon and little
Mary sit down and drink their tea together, while the Captain goes out
and takes his pleasure. She cares for nothing else but that, when her
husband is away.

A gentleman with whom we are already slightly acquainted, Mr. Jack
Finucane, a townsman of Captain Shandon's, found the Captain's wife and
little Mary (for whom Jack always brought a sweetmeat in his pocket)
over this meal. Jack thought Shandon the greatest of created geniuses,
had had one or two helps from the good-natured prodigal, who had always
a kind word, and sometimes a guinea for any friend in need; and never
missed a day in seeing his patron. He was ready to run Shandon's errands
and transact his money-business with publishers and newspaper editors,
duns, creditors, holders of Shandon's acceptances, gentlemen disposed
to speculate in those securities, and to transact the thousand little
affairs of an embarrassed Irish gentleman. I never knew an embarrassed
Irish gentleman yet, but he had an aide-de-camp of his own nation,
likewise in circumstances of pecuniary discomfort. That aide-de-camp
has subordinates of his own, who again may have other insolvent
dependents--all through his life our Captain marched at the head of a
ragged staff, who shared in the rough fortunes of their chieftain.

"He won't have that five-pound note very long, I bet a guinea," Mr.
Bungay said of the Captain, as he and his two companions walked away
from the prison; and the publisher judged rightly, for when Mrs.
Shandon came to empty her husband's pockets, she found but a couple of
shillings, and a few halfpence out of the morning's remittance. Shandon
had given a pound to one follower; had sent a leg of mutto