but smoke and fire.  Very well; now pay attention.  If we wait until these marriage articles are drawn up, the appearance or the discovery of this heir here will create great confusion; and you may take my word that every opposition will be given, and every inquiry made by Dunroe, who, as there seems to be no heir, will get the property; for it goes, in that case, with Miss Gourlay.  Every knot is more easily tied than untied.  Let us produce the heir, then, before the property’s disposed of, and then we won’t have to untie the knot—­to invalidate the marriage articles.  So far, so good—­that’s our plan.  But again, there’s the baronet ill; should he die before we establish this youth’s rights, think of our difficulty.  And, thirdly, he’s beginning to suspect our integrity, as he is pleased to call it.  That strange gentleman, Ginty, has mentioned circumstances to him that he says could come only from my father or myself, or you.”

“Proceed,” replied his sister, “proceed; I may look forward to the fulfilment of these plans; but I will never live to see it.”

“You certainly are much changed for the worse,” replied her brother, “especially since your reason has been restored to you.  In the meantime, listen.  The baronet is now ill, although Gibson says there’s no danger of him; he’s easier in his mind, however, in consequence of this marriage, that he has, for life or death, set his heart on; and altogether this is the best time to put this vagabond’s pretensions forward.”

“Thank you, uncle,” replied Ambrose, with a clouded brow.  “In six months hence, perhaps, I’ll be no vagabond.”

“Ay, in sixty years hence you will; and indeed, I fear, to tell you the truth, that you’ll never be anything else.  That, however, is not the question now.  We want to know what my father may say—­whether he will agree with us, or whether he can or will give us any better advice.  There is one thing, at least, we ought to respect him for; and that is, that he gave all his family a good education, although he had but little of that commodity himself, poor man.”

He had scarcely concluded, when old Anthony made his appearance, with that mystical expression on his face, half sneer, half gloom, which would lead one to conclude that his heart was divided between remorse and vengeance.

“Well,” said he, “you’re at work, I see—­honestly employed, of course.  Ginty, how long is Mr. Ambrose here dead now?”

“He died,” replied her brother, “soon after the intention of changing the children took place.  You took the hint, father, from the worthy baronet himself.”

“Ay, I did; and I wish I had not.  You died, my good young fellow, of scarlet-fever—­let me see—­but divil a much matther it is when you died; it’s little good you’ll come to, barrin’ you change your heart.  They say, indeed, the divil’s children have the divil’s luck; but I say, the divil’s children have the divil’s face, too; for sure he’s as like the black fiend his father as one egg is to another.”