The profligate creature and unprincipled spy bridled, looked disdain and bitterness at the amiable clergyman, who, accompanied by our heroine, retired to the vestry.  It is unnecessary to detail their conversation, which was sustained by the Cooleen Bawn with bitter tears.  It is enough to say that the good and pious minister, though not aware until then that Miss Herbert had, by the scoundrel baronet, been intruded into Squire Folliard’s family, was yet acquainted, from peculiar sources, with the nature of the immoral relation in which she stood to that hypocrite.  He felt shocked beyond belief, and assured the weeping girl that he would call the next day and disclose the treacherous design to her father, who, he said, could not possibly have been aware of the wretch’s character when he admitted her into his family.  They then parted, and our heroine was obliged to take this vile creature into the carriage with her home.  On their return, Miss Herbert began to display at once the malignity of her disposition, and the volubility of her tongue, in a fierce attack upon, what she termed, the ungentlemanly conduct of Mr. Brown.  To all she said, however, Helen uttered not one syllable of reply.  She neither looked at her nor noticed her, but sat in profound silence, not, however, without a distracted mind and breaking heart.

On the next day the squire took a fancy to look at the state of his garden, and, having got his hat and cane, he sallied out to observe how matters were going on, now that Mr. Malcomson had got an assistant, whom, by the way, he had not yet seen.

“Now, Malcomson,” said he, “as you have found an assistant, I hope you will soon bring my garden into decent trim.  What kind of a chap is he, and how did you come by him?”

“Saul, your honor,” replied Malcomson, “he’s a divilish clever chiel, and vara weel acquent wi’ our noble profession.”

“Confound yourself and your noble profession!  I think every Scotch gardener of you believes himself a gentleman, simply because he can nail a few stripes of old blanket against a wall.  How did you come by this fellow, I say?”

“Ou, just through Lanigan, the cook, your honor.”

“Did Lanigan know him?”

“Hout, no, your honor—­it was an act o’ charity like.”

“Ay, ay, Lanigan’s a kind-hearted old fool, and that’s just like him; but, in the meantime, let me see this chap.”

“There he is, your honor, trimming, and taking care of that bed of ‘love-lies-bleeding.’”

“Ay, ay; I dare say my daughter set him to that task.”

“Na, na, sir.  The young leddy hasna seen him yet, nor hasna been in the gerden for the last week.”

“Why, confound it, Malcomson, that fellow’s more like a beggarman than a gardener.”

“Saul, but he’s a capital hand for a’ that.  Your honor’s no’ to tak the beuk by the cover.  To be sure he’s awfully vulgar, but, ma faith, he has a richt gude knowledgeable apprehension o’ buttany and gerdening in generhal.”