On Sunday, no sooner was my mother gone to church, than I summoned Phil the valet, and insisted upon his producing my best suit, in which I arrayed myself (although I found that I had shot up so in my illness that the old dress was wofully too small for me), and, with my notable copy of verses in my hand, ran down towards Castle Brady, bent upon beholding my beauty.  The air was so fresh and bright, and the birds sang so loud amidst the green trees, that I felt more elated than I had been for months before, and sprang down the avenue (my uncle had cut down every stick of the trees, by the way) as brisk as a young fawn.  My heart began to thump as I mounted the grass-grown steps of the terrace, and passed in by the rickety hall-door.  The master and mistress were at church, Mr. Screw the butler told me (after giving a start back at seeing my altered appearance, and gaunt lean figure), and so were six of the young ladies.

‘Was Miss Nora one?’ I asked.

‘No, Miss Nora was not one,’ said Mr. Screw, assuming a very puzzled, and yet knowing look.

‘Where was she?’ To this question he answered, or rather made believe to answer, with usual Irish ingenuity, and left me to settle whether she was gone to Kilwangan on the pillion behind her brother, or whether she and her sister had gone for a walk, or whether she was ill in her room; and while I was settling this query, Mr. Screw left me abruptly.

I rushed away to the back court, where the Castle Brady stables stand, and there I found a dragoon whistling the ’Roast Beef of Old England,’ as he cleaned down a cavalry horse.  ’Whose horse, fellow, is that?’ cried I.

‘Feller, indeed!’ replied the Englishman:  ’the horse belongs to my captain, and he’s a better Feller nor you any day.’

I did not stop to break his bones, as I would on another occasion, for a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the garden as quickly as I could.

I knew somehow what I should see there.  I saw Captain Quin and Nora pacing the alley together.  Her arm was under his, and the scoundrel was fondling and squeezing the hand which lay closely nestling against his odious waistcoat.  Some distance beyond them was Captain Fagan of the Kilwangan regiment, who was paying court to Nora’s sister Mysie.

I am not afraid of any man or ghost; but as I saw that sight my knees fell a-trembling violently under me, and such a sickness came over me, that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against which I leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or two:  then I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on the walk, loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I always wore in its scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons.  I don’t tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, what mad wild despair, what a sensation as if the whole world was tumbling from under me; I make no doubt that my reader hath been jilted by the ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own sensations when the shock first fell upon him.