r of two or three amongst them, and Rutledge
remarked at the tremendous pace the other was going, and how impossible
it was that any fortune could long maintain it. There was some
difficulty in catching exactly his meaning, for he spoke rapidly, and
with more than his accustomed warmth. It was something, however, to this
effect: 'All this extravagant display is madame's doing, and the natural
consequence of his folly in France. If, instead of this absurd mistake,
he had married and settled in Ireland, his whole career would have taken
a different turn.' Now, when I reflected on the words after he left me,
I could not satisfy myself whether he had said that Carew ought to have
married, in contradistinction to have formed this French attachment, or
simply that he deemed an Irish wife would have been a wiser choice than
a French one."

"The former strikes me as the true interpretation," said Fagan; "and the
more I think on every circumstance of this affair, the more do I incline
to this opinion. The secrecy so unnecessary, the mystery as to
her family, even as to her name, all so needless. That interval of
seclusion, in which, probably, he had not yet resolved finally on the
course he should adopt. And, lastly, a point more peculiarly referring
to ourselves, and over which I have often pondered,--I mean the
selection of my daughter Polly to be her friend and companion. It is not
at my time of life," added Fagan, with an almost fierce energy of voice,
"that I have to learn how the aristocracy regard me and such as me.
No one needs to tell me that any intercourse between us must depend on
something else than similarity of taste and pursuit; that if we ever sit
down to the same table together, it is on the ground of a compromise.
There is a shame to be concealed or consoled, or there is a debt to be
deferred, or left unclaimed forever. Walter Carew's wife would scarcely
have sought out the Grinder's daughter for her friend and bosom
companion. His mistress might have thought such an alliance most
suitable. Polly has herself told me the terms of perfect equality on
which they lived; that never by a chance word, look, or gesture was
there aught which could imply a position of superiority above her own.
They called each other by their Christian names, they assumed all the
intimacy of sisters, and that almost at once. When she related these
things to me," cried Fagan, sternly, "my passion nearly overcame me, to
think how we had b