“He will be neither the one nor the other then,” said the prophetess, “but something better both for himself and his friends.”

“Is this by way of the oracular, Ginty?”

“You may take it so if you like,” replied the female.

“And does the learned page of futurity present nothing in the shape of a certain wooden engine, to which is attached a dangling rope, in association with the youth? for in my mind his merits are as likely to elevate him to the one as to the other.  However, don’t look like the pythoness in her fury, Ginty; a joke is a joke; and here’s that he may be whatever you wish him!  Ay, by the bones of Maro, this liquor is pleasant discussion!” We may observe here that they had been already furnished with a better description of drink—­“But with regard to the youth in question, there is one thing puzzles me, oh, most prophetical niece, and that is, that you should take it into your head to effect an impossibility, in other words, to make a gentleman of him; ex quovis ligno nonfit Mercurius, is a good ould proverb.”

“That is but natural in her, uncle,” replied Corbet, “if you knew everything; but for the present you can’t; nobody knows who he is, and that is a secret that must be kept.”

“Why,” replied the pedagogue, “is he not a slip from the Black Baronet, and are not you, Ginty——?”

“Whether the child you speak of,” she replied, “is living or dead is what nobody knows.”

“There is one thing I know,” said Corbet, “and that is, that I could scald the heart and soul in the Black Baronet’s body by one word’s speaking, if I wished; only the time is not yet come; but it will come, and that soon, I hope.”

“Take care, Charley,” replied the master; “no violation of sacred ties.  Is not the said Baronet your foster-brother?”

“He remembered no such ties when he brought shame and disgrace on our family,” replied Corbet, with a look of such hatred and malignity as could rarely be seen on a human countenance.

“Then why did you live with him, and remain in his confidence so long,” asked his uncle.

“I had my own reasons for that—­may be they will be known soon, and may be they will never be known,” replied his nephew—­“Whisht! there’s a foot on the stairs,” he added; “it’s this youth, I’m thinking.”

Almost immediately a young man, in a college-gown and cap, entered, the room, apparently the worse for liquor, and approaching the schoolmaster, who sat next him, slapped his shoulder, exclaiming: 

“Well, my jolly old pedagogue, I hope you have enjoyed yourself since I saw you last?  Mr. Corbet, how do you do?  And Cassandra, my darling death-like old prophetess, what have you to predict for Ambrose Gray,” for such was the name by which he went.

“Sit down, Mr. Gray,” said Corbet, “and join us in one glass of punch.”

“I will, in half-a-dozen,” replied the student; “for I am always glad to see my friends.”