it.

"So," says Vanston, "you are beginning to feel that there is something
wrong on your property, and that your agent is not doing you justice?"

"I have reason to suspect," replied Chevydale, "that he is neither more
nor less than feathering his own nest at the expense of myself and my
tenantry. I cannot understand why he is so anxious to get the M'Mahons
off the estate; a family unquestionably of great honesty, truth, and
integrity, and who, I believe, have been on the property before it
came into our possession at all. I feel--excuse me, Vanston, for the
admission, but upon my honor it is truth--I feel, I say, that, in the
matter of the election--that is, so far as M'Mahon was concerned, he--my
agent--made a cat's paw of me. He prevented me from supporting young
M'Mahon's memorial; he--he--prejudiced me against the family in several
ways, and now, that I am acquainted with the circumstances of strong and
just indignation against me under which M'Mahon voted, I can't at all
blame him. I would have done the same thing myself."

"There is d----d villany somewhere at work," replied Vanston. "They talk
of a fifty-pound note that I am said to have sent to him by post. Now, I
pledge my honor as an honest man and a gentleman, that I have sifted and
examined all my agents, and am satisfied that he never received a penny
from me. Young Burke did certainly promise to secure me his vote; but I
have discovered Burke to be a most unprincipled profligate, corrupt and
dishonest. For, you may think it strange that, although he engaged to
procure me M'Mahon's vote, M'Mahon himself, whom I believe, assured me
that he never even asked him for it, until after he had overheard, in
the head inn, a conversation concerning himself that filled him with
bitter resentment against you and your agent."

"I remember it," replied Chevydale, "and; yet my agents told me that
Burke did everything in his power to prevent M'Mahon from voting for
you."

"That," replied the other, "was to preserve his own character from the
charge of inconsistency; for, I again assure you that he had promised us
M'Mahon's vote, and that he urged him privately to vote against you. But
d--n the scoundrel, he is not worth the conversation we had about him.
Father Magowan, in consequence of whose note to me I wrote to ask you
here, states in the communication I had from him, that the parties will
be here about twelve o'clock--Burke himself, he thinks, and M'Mahon
alo