hat he
did not care to disguise the spirit of mistrust with which he heard the
speech. "Thanks; _you_ are too generous, and I am too modest, so let us
not think more of the matter."

"What is Cashel's real fortune?" said Meek, not sorry to turn the
conversation into a less dangerous channel; "one hears so many absurd
and extravagant reports, it is hard to know what to believe."

"Kennyfeck calls it fourteen thousand a year above all charges and cost
of collection."

"And your own opinion?"

Linton shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and said, "There or
thereabouts. I fancy that his ready money has been greatly overrated.
But why do you ask? Your people wouldn't give him a peerage, would
they?"

"Not now, of course," said Meek, hesitating.

"Nor at any time, I trust," said Linton, authoritatively. "The man does
not know how to behave as a plain country gentleman; why increase his
embarrassments by making him a Lord? Besides, you should take care in
these new creations who are your peeresses, or one of these days you 'll
have old Kennyfeck fancying that he is a noble himself."

"There is no danger to be apprehended in that quarter?" asked Meek, with
some trepidation of manner.

"Yes, but there is, though, and very considerable, too. He has been
living in the house with those girls,--clever and shrewd girls, too. He
is more at his ease there than elsewhere. They listen patiently to
his tiresome prairie stories, and are indulgent to all his little
'escapades'--as a 'ranchero;' in a word, he is a hero there, and never
leaves the threshold without losing some of the charms of the illusion."

"And you saw all this?"

"Yes."

"And suffered it?"

"Yes. What would you have me do? Had there been only one girl in the
case--I might have married her. But it is only in botany, or the bay of
that name, that the English permit polygamy."

"I am very sorry to hear this," said Meek, gravely.

"I am very sorry to have it to tell, Meek," said the other.

"He might marry so well!" muttered Meek, half in soliloquy.

"To be sure he might; and in good hands--I mean in those of a man who
sees his way in life--cut a very fair figure, too. But it won't do
to appear in London with a second or third rate woman, whose only
recommendation is the prettiness that has fascinated 'Castle balls' in
Dublin."

"Let us talk over this again, Linton," said Meek, arranging his papers,
and affecting to be busied.

"With all my heart; indee