“Alas!  Lucy—­Miss Dashwood, I would say—­how has my career fulfilled the promise that gave it birth?  For you, and you only, to gain your affection, I became a soldier.  And now, and now——­”

“And now,” said she, while her eyes beamed upon me with a very flood of tenderness, “is it nothing that I have glowed with pride at triumphs I could read of, but dared not share in?  I have thought of you.  I have dreamed, I have prayed for you.”

“Alas!  Lucy, but not loved me.”

Her hand, which had fallen upon mine, trembled violently.  I pressed my lips upon it, but she moved it not.  I dared to look up; her head was turned away, but her heaving bosom betrayed emotion.

Our eyes met—­I cannot say what it was—­but in a moment the whole current of my thoughts was changed.  Her look was bent upon me, beaming with softness and affection; her hand gently pressed my own, and her lips murmured my name.

The door burst open at this moment, and Sir George Dashwood appeared.  Lucy turned one fleeting look upon her father, and fell fainting into my arms.

“God bless you, my boy!” said the old general as he hurriedly wiped a tear from his eye.  “I am now indeed a happy father.”

* * * * *

Tom Burke of “Ours”

In 1840 Charles Lever, on an invitation from Sir John Crompton, Secretary to the British Embassy in Belgium, forsook Ireland for Brussels, where for a time he followed his profession of medicine.  Two years later an offer of the editorship of the “Dublin University Magazine” recalled him to Ireland, when he definitely abandoned a medical career and settled down to literature permanently.  The first fruit of that appointment was “Tom Burke of Ours,” published, after running serially in the magazine, in 1844.  It is more serious in tone than any of his preceding works; in it the author utilises the rich colouring gained from his long residence in France, and the book is less remarkable for the complex, if vigorous, story it contains than for its graphic and exciting pictures of men and events in the campaigns of Napoleon Many of its episodes are conceived in the true spirit of romance.

I.—­The Boy Rebel

“Be advised by me,” said De Meudon earnestly; “do not embark with these Irish rebels in their enterprise!  They have none.  Their only daring is some deed of rapine and murder.  No; liberty is not to be achieved by such bands as these.  France is your country—­there liberty has been won; there lives one great man whose notice, were it but passingly bestowed, is fame.”

He sank back exhausted.  The energy of his speech was too great for his weak and exhausted frame to bear.  Captain de Meudon had come to Ireland in 1798 to aid in the rebellion; he had seen its failure, but had remained in Ireland trying vainly to give to the disaffection some military organization.  He had realized the hopelessness of his efforts.  He was ill, and very near to death.  Now I stood by his bedside in a little cottage in Glenmalure.