maturing in his cellars, and aquaria for his fish, and ice-houses and baths, and I know not what refinements of old Roman Villa-luxury beside—­among which he meant to pass the honoured evening of his days; with just a few more thousands, and, as he sometimes thought, perhaps a wife.  He had not quite made up his mind; but he had come to the time when a man must forthwith accept matrimony frankly, or, if he be wise, shake hands with bleak celibacy, and content himself for his earthly future with monastic jollity and solitude.

It is a maxim with charitable persons—­and no more than a recognition of a great constitutional axiom—­to assume, in the absence of proof to the contrary, that every British subject is an honest man.  Now, if we had gone to Lord Castlemallard for his character—­and who more competent to give him one—­we know very well what we should have heard about Dangerfield; and, on the other hand, we have never found him out—­have we, kind reader?—­in a shabby action or unworthy thought; and, therefore, it leaves upon our mind an unpleasant impression about that Mr. Mervyn, who arrived in the dark, attending upon a coffin as mysterious as himself, and now lives solitarily in the haunted house near Ballyfermot, that the omniscient Dangerfield should follow him, when they pass upon the road, with that peculiar stern glance of surprise which seemed to say,—­’Was ever such audacity conceived?  Is the man mad?’

But Dangerfield did not choose to talk about him—­if indeed he had anything to disclose—­though the gentlemen at the club pressed him often with questions, which however, he quietly parried, to the signal vexation of active little Dr. Toole, who took up and dropped, in turn, all sorts of curious theories about the young stranger.  Lord Castlemallard knew all about him, too, but his lordship was high and huffy, and hardly ever in Chapelizod, except on horseback, and two or three times in the year at a grand dinner at the Artillery mess.  And when Mervyn was mentioned he always talked of something else, rather imperiously, as though he said, ’You’ll please to observe that upon that subject I don’t choose to speak.’  And as for Dr. Walsingham, when he thought it right to hold his tongue upon a given matter, thumb-screws could not squeeze it from him.

In short, our friend Toole grew so feverish under his disappointment that he made an excuse of old Tim Molloy’s toothache to go up in person to the ‘Tiled House,’ in the hope of meeting the young gentleman, and hearing something from him (the servants, he already knew, were as much in the dark as he) to alleviate his distress.  And, sure enough, his luck stood him in stead; for, as he was going away, having pulled out old Molloy’s grinder to give a colour to his visit, who should he find upon the steps of the hall-door but the pale, handsome young gentleman himself.