“And am I to sell the furniture, and everything—­horses, cattle, and everything about the place—­for three hundred pounds?”

“Not unless you like it, you ain’t, Mr Lynch; but I’ll tell you this—­if you can do so, and do do so, it’ll be the best bargain you ever made:—­mind, one-half of it all belongs to your sisther.”

Barry muttered an oath through his ground teeth; he would have liked to scratch the ashes of his father from their resting-place, and wreak his vengeance on them, whenever this degrading fact was named to him.

“But I want the money, Daly,” said he:  “I couldn’t get afloat unless I had more than that:  I couldn’t pay your bill, you know, unless I got a higher figure down than that.  Come, Daly, you must do something for me; you must do something, you know, to earn the fees,” and he tried to look facetious, by giving a wretched ghastly grin.

“My bill won’t be a long one, Mr Lynch, and you may be shure I’m trying to make it as short as I can.  And as for earning it, whatever you may think, I can assure you I shall never have got money harder.  I’ve now given you my best advice; if your mind’s not yet made up, perhaps you’ll have the goodness to let me hear from you when it is?” and Daly walked from the fire towards the door, and placed his hand upon the handle of it.

This was a hint which Barry couldn’t misunderstand.  “Well, I’ll write to you,” he said, and passed through the door.  He felt, however, that it was useless to attempt to trust himself to his own judgment, and he turned back, as Daly passed into his office—­“Daly,” he said, “step out one minute:  I won’t keep you a second.”  The attorney unwillingly lifted up the counter, and came out to him.  “Manage it your own way,” said he; “do whatever you think best; but you must see that I’ve been badly used—­infernally cruelly treated, and you ought to do the best you can for me.  Here am I, giving away, as I may say, my own property to a young shopkeeper, and upon my soul you ought to make him pay something for it; upon my soul you ought, for it’s only fair!”

“I’ve tould you, Mr Lynch, what I’ll propose to Martin Kelly; if you don’t think the terms fair, you can propose any others yourself; or you’re at liberty to employ any other agent you please.”

Barry sighed again, but he yielded.  He felt broken-hearted, and unhappy, and he longed to quit a country so distasteful to him, and relatives and neighbours so ungrateful; he longed in his heart for the sweet, easy haunts of Boulogne, which he had never known, but of which he had heard many a glowing description from congenial spirits whom he knew.  He had heard enough of the ways and means of many a leading star in that Elysium, to be aware that, with five hundred a-year, unembarrassed and punctually paid, he might shine as a prince indeed.  He would go at once to that happy foreign shore, where the memory of no father would follow him, where the presence of no sister would