y other condition of existence.

Out of these impressions thus enforced came all the characters of my
story. Not one was a portrait, though in each and all were traits taken
from life. If I suffered myself on one single occasion to amass too many
of the characteristics of an individual into a sketch, it was in
the picture of the beau of Drumcondera; but there I was drawing from
recollection and not able to correct, as I should otherwise have done,
what might seem too close adherence to a model. I have been told that in
the character of Linton I have exaggerated wickedness beyond all belief.
I am sorry to reply that I made but a faint copy of him who suggested
that personage, and who lives and walks the stage of life as I write.
One or two persons--not more--who know him whose traits furnished the
picture, are well aware that I have neither overdrawn my sketch, nor
exaggerated my drawing.

The Kennyfeck young ladies--I am anxious to say--are not from life, nor
is Lady Kilgoff, though I have heard surmises to the contrary.

These are all the explanations and excuses that occur to me I have
to make of this story. Its graver faults are not within the pale of
apology; and for these I only ask indulgence,--the same indulgence that
has never been denied me.

CHARLES LEVER.

Trieste, 1872.

ROLAND CASHEL.

CHAPTER I. DON PEDRO'S GUESTS.

And thus they lived ye merrie yeare,
For they were a jollie crewe
Of pleasante laddes that knewe no feare,
And--as little of honestie too.

Ballade of Capt. Pike.

Our tale opens on a gorgeous night of Midsummer, at an era so little
remote that to name the precise year could have no interest for the
reader, and in a region which seemed to combine all that is delightful
in climate with whatever is luxuriant and splendid in vegetation. It
was upon the bank of a small river, a tributary of the Oronoco, not
very distant from the picturesque city of Barcelonetta, that a
beautiful villa stood, the elegance of whose architecture and the lavish
magnificence of whose decorations were alike evidence that neither taste
nor wealth were wanting to its proprietor.

In this land, where Nature had been so prodigal of her gifts, the
luxurious appointments of this princely abode seemed to partake of the
character of a fairy palace; and the admixture of objects of high art,
the treasures of Italian galleries and Spanish collections, wit