e. I 'm certain he could give me a chance; eh, Kellett?"

"Well; I expect him back in Ireland every day. I was asking after him no
later than yesterday; but he's still away."

"When he comes back, however, you can mention me, of course; he'll know
who I am."

"I'll do it with pleasure. Good-night, Beecher,--goodnight; and I
hope"--this was soliloquy as he turned back towards the door,--"I hope
Dunn will do more for you than he ever has for _me!_ or, faith, it's not
worth while to make the acquaintance."

Bella retired to her room early, and Kellett sat moodily alone by his
fire. Like a great many other "embarrassed gentlemen," he was dragging
on life amidst all the expedients of loans, bonds, and mortgages, when
the bill for sale of the encumbered estates became the law of the land.
What with the legal difficulties of dispossessing him, what with the
changeful fortunes of a good harvest, or money a little more plentiful
in the market, he might have gone on to the last in this fashion, and
ended his days where he began them, in the old house of his fathers,
when suddenly this new and unexpected stroke of legislation cut short
all his resources at once, and left him actually a beggar on the world.

The panic created at the first moment by a law that seemed little short
of confiscation, the large amount of landed property thus suddenly
thrown into the market, the prejudice against Irish investment so
strongly entertained by the moneyed classes in England, all tended
vastly to depreciate the value of those estates which came first for
sale; and many were sold at prices scarcely exceeding four or five years
of their rental. An accidental disturbance in the neighborhood, some
petty outrage in the locality, was enough to depreciate the value;
and purchasers actually fancied themselves engaged in speculations
so hazardous that nothing short of the most tempting advantages would
requite them for their risk.

One of the very first estates for sale was Kellett's Court. The charges
on the property were immense, the accumulated debts of three generations
of spendthrifts; the first charge, however, was but comparatively small,
and yet even this was not covered by the proceeds of the sale. A house
that had cost nearly forty thousand pounds, standing on its own demesne,
surrounded by an estate yielding upwards of three thousand a year, was
knocked down for fifteen thousand four hundred pounds.

Kellett was advised to appeal agai