Poor Lady Emily, like her father, could not for the life of her suppose for a moment that her brother was serious:  a reflection that relieved her from much anxiety of mind and embarrassment on his account.

“Papa,” said, she, whilst her beautiful features were divided, if we may so say, between smiles and tears, “papa, Dunroe is only jesting; I am sure he is only jesting, and does not mean any serious disrespect to religion.”

“That may be, my dear Emily; but he will allow me to tell him that it is the last subject upon which he, or any one else, should jest.  Whether you are in jest or earnest, my dear Dunroe, let me advise you to bring the moral courage and energies of a man to the contemplation of your life, in the first place; and in the next, to its improvement.  It is not reading the Bible, nor repeating prayers, that will, of themselves, make you religious, unless the heart is in earnest; but a correct knowledge of what is right and wrong—­in other words, of human duty—­will do much good in the first place; with a firm resolution to avoid the evil and adopt the good.  Remember that you are accountable to the Being who placed you in this life, and that your duty here consists, not in the indulgence of wild and licentious passions, but in the higher and nobler ones of rendering as many of your fellow-creatures happy as you can:  for such a course will necessarily insure happiness to yourself.  This is enough for the present; as soon as you recover your strength you shall come to Ireland.”

“When I recover my strength!” he exclaimed.  “Ay, to be eaten like a titbit.  Heavens, what a delicious morsel a piece of a young peer would be to such fellows! but I will not run that horrible risk.  Lucy must come to me—­I am sure the prospect of a countess’s coronet ought to be a sufficient inducement to her.  But, to think that I should run the risk of being shot from behind a hedge—­made a component part of a midnight bonfire, or entombed in the bowels of some Patagonian cannibal, savagely glad to feed, upon the hated Saxon who has so often fed upon him!—­No, I repeat, Lucy, if she is to be a countess, must travel in this direction.”

The indelicacy and want of all consideration for the feelings of his father, so obvious in his heartless allusion to a fact which could only result from that father’s death, satisfied the old man that any reformation in his son was for the present hopeless, and even Lady Emily felt anxious to put an end to the visit as soon as possible.

“By the way,” said his father, as they were taking their leave, “I have had an unpleasant letter from my brother, in which he states that he wrote to you, but got no answer.”

“I never received a letter from him,” replied his lordship; “none ever reached me; if it had, the very novelty of a communication from such a quarter would have prevented me from forgetting it.”

“I should think so.  His letter to me, indeed, is a strange one.  He utters enigmatical threats—­”