“I shook my head, your honor, as much as to say—­’It’s no go this time.’

“‘Ma’am,’ says I, ’that’s unfortunate—­my masther, when he gets a loose leg, will never marry any woman that has not been in France, and can dance the fandango like a Frenchman.’

“‘I am sorry for his taste,’ says she, ’and for yours, too; but at all events, you had better go up and tell him that I’ll walk down the opposite side of the street, and then he can see what he has lost, and feel what France has cost him.’

“She then walked, sir, or rather sailed, down the other side of the street, holdin’ up her clothes behind, to show a pair of legs like telescopes, with her head to it’s full height, and one eye squintin’ to the hotel, like a crow lookin’ into a marrow bone.”

“Well,” said his master, “but I don’t see the object of all this.”

“Why, the object, sir, is to show you that it’s not so aisy to know whether a person’s young and handsome or not.  You, sir, think yourself both; and so did the old skeleton I’m spakin’ of.”

“I see your moral, Dandy,” replied his master, laughing; “at all events, make every possible inquiry, but, at the same time, in a quiet way.  More depends upon it than you can imagine.  Not,” he added, in a kind of half soliloquy, “that I am acting in this affair from motives of a mere personal nature; I am now only the representative of another’s wishes, and on that account, more than from any result affecting myself, do I proceed in it.”

“I wish I knew, sir,” said Dandy, “what kind of a woman this Mrs. Norton is; whether she’s old or young, handsome or otherwise.  At all events, I think I may confine myself to them that’s young and handsome.  It’s always pleasanter, sir, and more agreeable to deal with a hands—­”

“Confine yourself to truth, sir,” replied his master, sharply; “make prudent inquiries, and in doing so act like a man of sense and discretion, and don’t attempt to indulge in your buffoonery at my expense.  No woman named Norton can be the individual I want to find, who has not lived for some years in France.  That is a sufficient test; and if you should come in the way of the woman I am seeking, who alone can answer this description, I shall make it worth your while to have succeeded.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.  The Priest asks for a Loan of Fifty Guineas

—­and Offers “Freney the Robber” as Security.

Whilst Father M’Mahon was wending his way to Constitution Hill from the Brazen Head, where he had deposited his little bundle, containing three shirts, two or three cravats, and as many pairs of stockings, a dialogue was taking place in old Corbet’s with which we must make the reader acquainted.  He is already aware that Corbet’s present wife was his second, and that she had a daughter by her first marriage, who had gone abroad to the East Indies, many years ago, with her husband.  This woman