:

"I don't believe you are an Englishman."

"I'll be honest with you, Miss Lane," said he. "I am not."

"Who are you?"

"If you will keep my secret, I will tell you all." Morgianna, as fond of
mischief as Terrence, agreed to do so, and he told her everything. She
laughed until the tears coursed down her pretty cheeks. She said it was
a good joke and as soon as she got home, she would tell her papa and he
would, she knew, enjoy it.

"But you must not drink any more wine," she added. "It affects your
head." Fernando admitted that he was not used to it, and he promised to
desist. After waltzing for an hour with her and getting a tender squeeze
of the hand, he restored her to an affable old lady who acted as
Morgianna's chaperon, and then Fernando retired to new conquests, his
head in a whirl and his heart in a flutter.

Lord Kildee soon had him under his care and introduced him to some
friends, among them Lieutenant Matson, who had early in the evening made
so many unsuccessful attempts to attract Miss Lane's favorable notice
that Fernando had come to regard him as a dangerous rival. Despite the
injunction of the fair Morgianna, he found himself half unconsciously
quaffing three or four glasses to the good health of somebody; he really
did not know whether it was King George or President Jefferson.

Fernando, naturally witty, soon ingratiated himself into this well
occupied clique, and he dosed them with glory to their heart's content.
He resolved at once to enter into their humor, and as the wine mounted
up to his brain, he gradually found his acquaintance and politics
extending to every country and political creed.

"Did you know Thomas Matson of his majesty's ship _Spit-Fire?"_ asked
the lieutenant.

"Tom Matson!" cried Fernando. "Indeed I did sir, and do still! and there
is not a man in the British navy I am prouder of knowing." Of course he
had never heard of Thomas Matson until this moment.

"You don't say, sir?" said the lieutenant in astonishment. "Has he any
chance of promotion, sir?"

"Promotion!" cried Fernando, in well-feigned astonishment. "Why, have
you not heard that he is already in command of a ship? You cannot
possibly have heard from him lately, or you would have known that!"

"That's true, sir; I have not heard from him since he quitted the _Black
Cloud_ in the South, I think they said for his health; but how did he
get the step?"

"Why, as to the promotion, that was remarkable enough,"