me here, so you
can leave me, my dear friend, for I see you are impatient to get away."

Lord Glengariff pressed his hand cordially, and descended the stairs far
more rapidly than he had mounted them.

"Lord Glengariff,--one word, my Lord," cried Mr. Hankes, hastening after
him, and just catching him at the door.

"Not now, sir,--not now," said Lord Glengariff.

"I beg a thousand pardons, my Lord, but Mr. Dunn writes me peremptorily
to say that it cannot be effected--"

"Not raise the money, did you say?" asked he, growing suddenly pale.

"Not in the manner he proposed, my Lord. If you will allow me to
explain--"

"Come over to my hotel. I am at Bilton's," said Lord Glengariff. "Call
on me there in an hour." And so saying, he got into his carriage and
drove off.

In the large drawing-room of the hotel sat a lady working, and
occasionally reading a book which lay open before her. She was tall and
thin, finely featured, and though now entered upon that period of life
when every line and every tint confess the ravage of time, was still
handsome. This was Lady Augusta Arden, Lord Glengariff's only unmarried
daughter, the very type of her father in temperament as well as
appearance.

"By George! it is confiscation. It is the inauguration of that Communism
the French speak of," cried Lord Glengariff, as he entered the room.
"There 's poor Barton of Curryglass, one of the oldest names in his
county, sold out, and for nothing,--absolutely nothing. No man shall
persuade me that this is just or equitable; no man shall tell me that
the Legislature shall step in and decide at any moment how I am to deal
with my creditors."

"I never heard of that Burton."

"I said Barton,--not Burton; a man whose estate used to be called five
thousand a year," said he, angrily. "There he is now, turned out on the
world. I verily believe he has n't a guinea left! And what is all this
for? To raise up in the country a set of spurious gentry,--fellows that
were never heard of, whose names are only known over shop-boards,--as
if the people should be better treated or more kindly dealt with by them
than by us, their natural protectors! By George! if Ireland should swarm
with Davenport Dunns, I 'd call it a sorry exchange for the good blood
she had lost in exterminating her old gentry."

"Has he come back?" asked Lady Augusta, as she bent her head more deeply
over her work, and her cheeks grew a shade more red.

"No; he's dining with roy