y, and he 's a field-marshal,
and I don't know what more beside, this minute. My son Frank 's there
now."

"And likes it?"

"Troth, he does n't say a great deal about that. His letter is mighty
short, and tells very little more than where he 's quartered, how
hard-worked he is, and that he never gets a minute to himself, poor
fellow!"

"Miss Kate, then, has drawn the prize in the lottery of life?" said
Foglass, who was anxious to bring the subject back to her.

"Faix, that's as it may be," said the other, thoughtfully. "Her letters
is full of high life and great people, grand dances and balls, and the
rest of it; but sure, if she 's to come back here again and live at
home, won't it come mighty strange to her?"

"But in Ireland, when you return there, the society, I conclude, is very
good?" asked Foglass, gradually drawing him on to revelations of his
future intentions and plans.

"Who knows if I'll ever see it again? The estate has left us. 'T is them
Onslows has it now. It might be in worse hands, no doubt; but they 've
no more right to it than you have."

"No right to it, how do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, that if every one had their own, sorrow an acre of
that property would be theirs. 'T is a long story, but if you like to
hear it, you 're welcome. It 's more pleasure than pain to me to tell
it, though many a man in my situation would n't have the heart to go
over it."

Foglass pronounced his willingness at once; and, a fresh jorum of
punch being concocted, Dalton commenced that narrative of his marriage,
widowhood, and loss of fortune, of which the reader already knows the
chief particulars, and with whose details we need not twice inflict him.

The narrative was a very long one; nor was it rendered more succinct by
the manner of the narrator, nor the frequent interruptions to which, for
explanation's sake, Foglass subjected him. Shall we own, too, that the
punch had some share in the intricacy, Dalton's memory and Foglass's
perceptions growing gradually more and more nebulous as the evening wore
on. Without at all wishing to impugn Dalton's good faith, it must
be owned that, what between his occasional reflections, his doubts,
guesses, surmises, and suspicions, his speculations as to the reason
of this and the cause of that, it was very difficult for a man so deeply
versed in punch as Foglass to carry away anything like a clear notion
of the eventful occurrences related. The strength of the potat