in a perfect maze of doubt and
difficulty, and cannot comprehend a word I hear about me."

"Faith, my boy, I have little time for explanation. The man who was at
Waterloo yesterday, is to be married to-morrow, and to sail for India in a
week, has quite enough upon his hands."

"Colonel Power, you will please to put your signature here," said Lord
Clancarty, addressing himself to me.

"If you will allow me," said Fred, "I had rather represent myself."

"Is not this the colonel, then? Why, confound it, I have been wishing him
joy the last quarter of an hour!"

A burst of laughter from the whole party, in which it was pretty evident I
took no part, followed this announcement.

"And so you are not Colonel Power? Nor going to be married, either?"

I stammered out something, while, overwhelmed with confusion, I stooped
down to sign the paper. Scarcely had I done so, when a renewed burst of
laughter broke from the party.

"Nothing but blunders, upon my soul," said the ambassador, as he handed the
paper from one to another.

What was my confusion to discover that instead of Charles O'Malley, I had
written the name of Lucy Dashwood. I could bear no more. The laughing and
raillery of my friends came upon my wounded and irritated feelings like the
most poignant sarcasm. I seized my cap and rushed from the room. Desirous
of escaping from all that knew me, anxious to bury my agitated and
distracted thoughts in solitude and quiet, I opened the first door before
me, and seeing it an empty and unoccupied room, throw myself upon a sofa,
and buried my head within my hands. Oh, how often had the phantom of
happiness passed within my reach, but still glided from my grasp! How often
had I beheld the goal I aimed at, as it were before me, and the next moment
all the bleak reality of my evil fortune was lowering around me!

"Oh, Lucy, Lucy!" I exclaimed aloud, "but for you and a few words
carelessly spoken, I had never trod that path of ambition whose end has
been the wreck of all my happiness. But for you, I had never loved so
fondly; I had never filled my mind with one image which, excluding every
other thought, leaves no pleasure but in it alone. Yes, Lucy, but for you I
should have gone tranquilly down the stream of life with naught of grief or
care, save such as are inseparable from the passing chances of mortality;
loved, perhaps, and cared for by some one who would have deemed it no
disgrace to have linked her fortune to my o