‘Read it, read it, doctor dear, and you’ll see.’

‘Read all this! thank you, Ma’am; I read it a month ago,’ said the doctor gruffly.

‘Oh! no—­this—­only there—­you see—­here,’ and she indicated a particular advertisement, which we here reprint for the reader’s instruction; and thus it ran—­

“MARY MATCHWELL’S most humble Respects attend the Nobility and Gentry.  She has the Honour to acquaint them that she transacts all Business relative to Courtship and Marriage, with the utmost Dispatch and Punctuality.  She has, at a considerable Expense, procured a complete List of all the unmarried Persons of both Sexes in this Kingdom, with an exact Account of their Characters, Fortunes, Ages, and Persons.  Any Lady or Gentleman, by sending a Description of the Husband or Wife they would chuse, shall be informed where such a One is to be had, and put in a Method for obtaining him, or her, in the speediest Manner, and at the smallest Expense.  Mrs. Matchwell’s Charges being always proportioned to the Fortunes of the Parties, and not to be paid till the Marriage takes place.  She hopes the Honour and Secrecy she will observe in her Dealings, will encourage an unfortunate Woman, who hath experienced the greatest Vicissitudes of Life, as will be seen in her Memoirs, which are shortly to be published under the Title of ’Fortune’s Football.’  All Letters directed to M. M., and sent Post paid to the Office where this Paper is published, shall be answered with Care."’

’Yes, yes, I remember that—­a cheating gipsy—­why, it’s going on still—­I saw it again yesterday, I think—­a lying jade!—­and this is the rogue that troubles you?’ said Toole with his finger on the paragraph, as the paper lay on the table.

’Give it to me, doctor, dear.  I would not have them see it for the world—­and—­and—­oh! doctor—­sure you wouldn’t tell.’

’Augh, bother!—­didn’t I swear my soul, Ma’am; and do you think I’m going to commit a perjury about “Mary Matchwell”—­phiat!’

Well, with much ado, and a great circumbendibus, and floods of tears, and all sorts of deprecations and confusions, out came the murder at last.

Poor Mrs. Mack had a duty to perform by her daughter.  Her brother was the best man in the world; but what with ‘them shockin’ forfitures’ in her father’s time (a Jacobite granduncle had forfeited a couple of town-lands, value L37 per annum, in King William’s time, and to that event, in general terms, she loved to refer the ruin of her family), and some youthful extravagances, his income, joined to hers, could not keep the dear child in that fashion and appearance her mother had enjoyed before her, and people without pedigree or solid pretension of any sort, looked down upon her, just because they had money (she meant the Chattesworths), and denied her the position which was hers of right, and so seeing no other way of doing the poor child justice, she applied to ‘M.  M.’