t was the reason I
walked out here in the rain to-night I said to myself, 'Terry,' says I,
'they 'll never say a word about this to Miss Kellett till the quarter
is up; be off, now, and break it to her at once.'"

"It was so like your own kind heart," burst out Bella.

"Yes," muttered Driscoll, as if in a revery, "that's the only good o' me
now,--I can think of what will be of use to others."

"Did n't I tell you we were in a vein of good luck, Bella?" said
Kellett, between his teeth; "didn't I say awhile ago there was more
coming?"

"'But,' says I to Mary," continued Driscoll, "'you must take care to
recommend Miss Kellett among your friends--'"

Kellett dashed his glass down with such force on the table as to
frighten Driscoll, whose speech was thus abruptly cut short, and the two
men sat staring fixedly at each other. The expression of poor Terry's
vacant face, in which a struggling effort to deprecate anger was the
solitary emotion readable, so overcame Kellett's passion that, stooping
over, he grasped the other's hand warmly, and said,--

"You 're a kind-hearted creature, and you 'd never hurt a living soul. I
'm not angry with you."

"Thank you, Captain Kellett,--thank you," cried the other, hurriedly,
and wiped his brow, like one vainly endeavoring to follow out a chain
of thought collectedly. "Who is this told me that you had another
daughter?"

"No," said Kellett; "I have a son."

"Ay, to be sure! so it was a son, they said, and a fine strapping young
fellow too. Where is he?"

"He 's with his regiment, the Rifles, in the Crimea."

"Dear me, now, to think of that,--fighting the French, just the way his
father did."

"No," said Kellett, smiling, "it 's the Russians he 's fighting, and the
French are helping him to do it."

"That's better any day," said Driscoll; "two to one is a pleasanter
match. And so he's in the Rifles?" And here he laid his head on his hand
and seemed lost in thought. "Is he a captain?" asked he, after a long
pause.

"No, not yet," said Kellett, while his cheek flushed at the evasion he
was practising.

"Well, maybe he will soon," resumed the other, relapsing once more into
deep thought. "There was a young fellow joined them in Cork just before
they sailed, and I lent him thirty shillings, and he never paid me. I
wonder what became of him? Maybe he's killed."

"Just as likely," said Kellett, carelessly.

"Now, would your son be able to make him out for me?--not for the