One evening, about that time, Ginty Cooper had been to see her brother, Tom Corbet, at the baronet’s, and was on her way home, when she accidentally spied M’Bride in conversation with Norton, at Lord Cullamore’s hall-door, which, on her way to Sir Thomas’s, she necessarily passed.  It was just about dusk, or, as they call it in the country, between the two lights, and as the darkness was every moment deepening, she resolved to watch them, for the purpose of tracing M’Bride home to his lodgings.  They, in the meantime, proceeded to a public-house in the vicinity, into which both entered, and having ensconced themselves in a little back closet off the common tap-room, took their seats at a small round table, Norton having previously ordered some punch.  Giuty felt rather disappointed at this caution, but in a few minutes a red-faced girl, with a blowzy head of hair strong as wire, and crisped into small obstinate undulations of surface which neither comb nor coaxing could smooth away, soon followed them with the punch and a candle.  By the light of the latter, Ginty perceived that there was nothing between them but a thin partition of boards, through the slits of which she could, by applying her eye or ear, as the case might be, both see and hear them.  The tap-room at the time was empty, and Ginty, lest her voice might be heard, went to the bar, from whence she herself brought in a glass of porter, and having taken her seat close to the partition, overheard the following conversation: 

“In half an hour he’s to see you, then?” said Norton, repeating the words with a face of inquiry.

“Yes, sir; in half an hour.”

“Well, now,” he continued, “I assure you I’m neither curious nor inquisitive; yet, unless it be a very profound secret indeed, I give my honor I should wish to hear it.”

“There’s others in your family would be glad to hear it as well as you,” replied M’Bride.

“The earl has seen you once or twice before on the subject, I think?”

“He has, sir?”

“And this is the third time, I believe?”

“It will be the third time, at all events.”

“Come, man,” said Norton, “take your punch; put yourself in spirits for the interview.  It requires a man to pluck up to be able to speak to a nobleman.”

“I have spoken to as good as ever he was; not that I say anything to his lordship’s disparagement,” replied M’Bride; “but I’ll take the punch for a better reason—­because I I have a fellow feeling for it.  And yet it was my destruction, too; however, it can’t be helped.  Yes, faith, it made me an ungrateful scoundrel; but, no matter!—­sir, here’s your health!  I must only, as they say, make the best of a bad bargain—­must bring my cattle to the best market.”

“Ay,” said Norton, dryly and significantly; “and so you think the old earl, the respectable old nobleman, is your best chapman?  Am I right?”

“I may go that far, any way,” replied the fellow, with a knowing grin; “but I don’t lave you much the wiser.”